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SESAME    AND    LILIES. 


THREE  LECTURES  BY 


JOHN   RUSKIN,  LL.D. 


1.  OF  KINGS'  TREASURIES. 

2.  OF  QUEENS'  GARDENS. 

3.  OF  THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE. 


REPRINTED   FROM  THE  THIRD   ENGLISH   EDITION. 


NEW  YORK: 
JOHN  WILEY  &  SONS, 

15  ASTOR  PLACE. 

1888. 


i_  i  n  r  ••    <  V 

7S, 

MAMtl 

t.r./u  sctiUUL 
.    humE  ECONOMICS 

S^fc 

SAN! 

«KA,  CALIFORM* 

Sh 

-SLO 

£A 

PREFACE. 


I.  Being  now  fifty-one  years  old,  and  little  likely  to 
change  my  mind  hereafter  on  any  important  subject  of 
thought  (unless  through  weakness  of  age),  I  wish  to  pub- 
lish a  connected  series  of  such  parts  of  my  works  as  now 
seem  to  me  right,  and  likely  to  be  of  permanent  use.  In 
doing  so  I  shall  omit  much,  but  not  attempt  to  mend 
what  I  think  worth  reprinting.  A  young  man  neces- 
sarily writes  otherwise  than  an  old  one,  and  it  would  be 
worse  than  wasted  time  to  try  to  recast  the  juvenile 
language  :  nor  is  it  to  be  thought  that  I  am  ashamed 
even  of  what  I  cancel ;  for  great  part  of  my  earlier  work 
was  rapidly  written  for  temporary  purposes,  and  is  now 
unnecessary,  though  true,  even  to  truism.  What  I  wrote 
about  religion,  was,  on  the  contrary,  painstaking,  and, 
I  think,  forcible,  as  compared  with  most-  religious  writ- 
ing ;  especially  in  its  frankness  and  fearlessness:  but  it 
was  wholly  mistaken ;  for  I  had  been  educated  in  the 
doctrines  of  a  narrow  sect,  and  had  read  history  as  ob- 
liquely as  sectarians  necessarily  must. 

iii 


JV  PREFACE. 

Mingled  among  these  either  unnecessary  or  erroneous 
statements,  I  find,  indeed,  some  that  might  be  still  of 
value  ;  but  these,  in  my  earlier  books,  disfigured  by  af- 
fected language,  partly  through  the  desire  to  be  thought 
a  fine  writer,  and  partly,  as  in  the  second  volume  of 
Modern  Painters,  in  the  notion  of  returning  as  far  as  I 
could  to  what  I  thought  the  better  style  of  old  English 
literature,  especially  to  that  of  my  then  favourite,  in 
prose,  Richard  Hooker. 

II.  For  these  reasons,  though,  as  respects  either  art, 
policy,  or  morality  as  distinct  from  religion,  I  not  only 
still  hold,  but  would  even  wish  strongly  to  re-affirm  the 
substance  of  what  I  said  in  my  earliest  books,  I  shall 
reprint  scarcely  anything  in  this  series  out  of  the  first 
and  second  volumes  of  Modern  Painters ;  and  shall  omit 
much  of  the  Seven  Lamps  and  Stones  of  Venice :  but  all 
my  books  written  within  the  last  fifteen  years  will  be 
republished  without  change,  as  new  editions  of  them 
are  called  for,  with  here  and  there  perhaps  an  addi- 
tional note,  and  having  their  text  divided,  for  conven- 
ient reference,  into  paragraphs  consecutive  through 
each  volume.  I  shall  also  throw  together  the  shorter 
fragments  that  bear  on  each  other,  and  fill  in  with  such 
imprinted  lectures  or  studies  as  seem  to  me  worth  pre- 


PREFACE.  V 

serving,  so  as  to  keep  the  volumes,  on  an  average,  com- 
posed cf  about  a  hundred  leaves  each. 

III.  The  first  book  of  which  a  new  edition  is  required 
chances  to  be  Sesame  and  IAlies,  from  which  I  now  de- 
tach the  old  preface,  about  the  Alps,  for  use  elsewhere ; 
and  to  which  I  add  a  lecture  given  in  Ireland  on  a  sub- 
ject closely  connected  with  that  of  the  book  itself.  I 
am  glad  that  it  should  be  the  first  of  the  complete 
series,  for  many  reasons  ;  though  in  now  looking  over 
these  two  lectures,  I  am  painfully  struck  by  the  waste 
of  good  work  in  them.  They  cost  me  much  thought, 
and  much  strong  emotion ;  but  it  was  foolish  to  sup- 
pose that  I  could  rouse  my  audiences  in  a  little  while 
to  any  sympathy  with  the  temper  into  which  I  had 
brought  myself  by  years  of  thinking  over  subjects  full 
of  pain  ;  while,  if  I  missed  my  purpose  at  the  time,  it 
was  little  to  be  hoped  I  could  attain  it  afterwards ; 
since  phrases  written  for  oral  delivery  become  ineffec- 
tive when  quietly  read.  Yet  I  should  only  take  away 
what  good  is  in  them  if  I  tried  to  translate  them  into 
the  language  of  books ;  nor,  indeed,  could  I  at  all  have 
done  so  at  the  time  of  their  delivery,  my  thoughts  then 
habitually  and  impatiently  putting  themselves  into 
forms  fit  only  for  emphatic  speech  :   and   thus   I  am 


VI  PREFACE. 

startled,  in  my  review  of  them,  to  find  that,  though 
there  is  much,  (forgive  me  the  impertinence)  which 
seems  to  me  accurately  and  energetically  said,  there  is 
scarcely  anything  put  in  a  form  to  be  generally  convinc- 
ing, or  even  easily  intelligible  ;  and  I  can  well  imagine 
a  reader  laying  down  the  book  without  being  at  all 
moved  by  it,  still  less  guided,  to  any  definite  course  of 
action. 

I  think,  however,  if  I  now  say  briefly  and  clearly 
what  I  meant  my  hearers  to  understand,  and  what  I 
wanted,  and  still  would  fain  have,  them  to  do,  there 
may  afterwards  be  found  some  better  service  in  the 
passionately  written  text. 

IV.  The  first  Lecture  says,  or  tries  to  say,  that,  life 
being  very  short,  and  the  quiet  hours  of  it  few,  we  ought 
to  waste  none  of  them  in  reading  valueless  books  ;  and 
that  valuable  books  should,  in  a  civilized  country,  be 
within  the  reach  of  every  one,  printed  in  excellent  form, 
for  a  just  price  ;  but  not  in  any  vile,  vulgar,  or,  by 
reason  of  smallness  of  type,  physically  injurious  form, 
at  a  vile  price.  For  we  none  of  us  need  many  books,  and 
those  which  we  need  ought  to  be  clearly  printed,  on  the 
best  paper,  and  strongly  bound.  And  though  we  are, 
indeed,  now,  a  wretched  and  poverty-struck  nation,  and 


PREFACE.  Vll 

hardly  able  to  keep  soul  and  body  together,  still,  as 
no  person  in  decent  circumstances  would  put  on  his 
table  confessedly  bad  wine,  or  bad  meat,  without  being 
ashamed,  so  he  need  not  have  on  his  shelves  ill-printed 
or  loosely  and  wretchedly-stitched  books ;  for,  though 
few  can  be  rich,  yet  every  man  who  honestly  exerts 
himself  may,  I  think,  still  provide,  for  himself  and  his 
family,  good  shoes,  good  gloves,  strong  harness  for  his 
cart  or  carriage  horses,  and  stout  leather  binding  for 
his  books.  And  I  would  urge  upon  every  young  man, 
as  the  beginning  of  his  due  and  wise  provision  for  his 
household,  to  obtain  as  soon  as  he  can,  by  the  severest 
economy,  a  restricted,  serviceable,  and  steadily — how- 
ever slowly — increasing,  series  of  books  for  use  through 
life  ;  making  his  little  library,  of  all  the  furniture  in  his 
room,  the  most  studied  and  decorative  piece  ;  every 
volume  having  its  assigned  place,  like  a  little  statue  in 
its  niche,  and  one  of  the  earliest  and  strictest  lessons 
to  the  children  of  the  house  being  how  to  turn  the 
pages  of  their  own  literary  possessions  lightly  and  de- 
liberately, with  no  chance  of  tearing  or  dogs'  ears. 

Y.  That  is  my  notion  of  the  founding  of  King's  Treas- 
uries ;  and  the  first  Lecture  is  intended  to  show  some- 
what the  use  and  preciousness  of  their  treasures  :  but 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

the  two  following  ones  have  wider  scope,  being  written 
in  the  hope  of  awakening  the  youth  of  England,  so  far 
as  my  poor  words  might  have  any  power  with  them,  to 
take  some  thought  of  the  purposes  of  the  life  into  which 
they  are  entering,  and  the  nature  of  the  world  they 
have  to  conquer. 

VI.  These  two  lectures  are  fragmentary  and  ill-ar- 
ranged, but  not,  I  think,  diffuse  or  much  compressible. 
The  entire  gist  and  conclusion  of  them,  however,  is  in  the 
last  sis  paragraphs,  135  to  the  end,  of  the  third  lecture, 
which  I  would  beg  the  reader  to  look  over  not  once  nor 
twice  (rather  than  any  other  part  of  the  book),  for  they 
contain  the  best  expression  I  have  yet  been  able  to  put 
in  words  of  what,  so  far  as  is  within  my  power,  I  mean 
henceforward  both  to  -do  myself,  and  to  plead  with  all 
over  whom  I  have  any  influence,  to  do  also  according  to 
their  means :  the  letters  begun  on  the  first  day  of  this 
year,  to  the  workmen  of  England,  having  the  object  of 
originating,  if  possible,  this  movement  among  them,  in 
true  alliance  with  whatever  trustworthy  element  of  help 
they  can  find  in  the  higher  classes.  After  these  para- 
graphs, let  me  ask  you  to  read,  by  the  fiery  light  of 
recent  events,  the  fable  at  p.  142  (§  117),  and  then  §§ 
129 — 131 ;  and  observe,  my  statement  respecting  the 


PREFACE.  IX 

famine  at  Orissa  is  not  rhetorical,  but  certified  by  offi- 
cial documents  as  within  the  truth.  Five  hundred  thou- 
sand persons,  at  hast,  died  by  starvation  in  our  British 
dominions,  wholly  in  consequence  of  carelessness  and 
want  of  forethought.  Keep  that  well  in  your  memory ; 
and  note  it  as  the  best  possible  illustration  of  modern 
political  economy  in  true  practice,  and  of  the  relations 
it  has  accomplished  between  Supj)ly  and  Demand. 
Then  begin  the  second  lecture,  and  all  will  read  clear 
enough,  I  think,  to  the  end;  only,  since  that  second 
lecture  was  written,  questions  have  arisen  respecting 
the  education  and  claims  of  women  which  have  greatly 
troubled  simple  minds  and  excited  restless  ones.  I  am 
sometimes  asked  my  thoughts  on  this  matter,  and  I 
suppose  that  some  girl  readers  of  the  second  lecture 
may  at  the  end  of  it  desire  to  be  told  summarily  what 
I  would  have  them  do  and  desire  in  the  present  state 
of  things.  This,  then,  is  what  I  would  say  to  any  girl 
who  had  confidence  enough  in  me  to  believe  what  I 
told  her,  or  do  what  I  ask  her. 

VII.  First,  be  quite  sure  of  one  thing,  that,  however 
much  you  may  know,  and  whatever  advantages  you  may 
possess,  and  however  good  you  may  be,  you  have  not 

been  singled  out,  by  the  God  who  made  you,  from  all  the 

l* 


X  PREFACE. 

other  girls  in  the  world,  to  bo  especially  informed  re- 
specting His  own  nature  and  character.  You  have  not 
been  born  in  a  luminous  point  upon  the  surface  of  the 
globe,  where  a  perfect  theology  might  be  expounded  to 
you  from  your  youth  up,  and  where  everything  you 
were  taught  would  be  true,  and  everything  that  was  en- 
forced uj>on  you,  right.  Of  all  the  insolent,  all  the 
foolish  persuasions  that  by  any  chance  could  enter  and 
hold  your  empty  little  heart,  this  is  the  proudest  and 
foolishest, — that  you  have  been  so  much  the  darling  of 
the  Heavens,  and  favourite  of  the  Fates,  as  to  be  born 
in  the  very  nick  of  time,  and  in  the  punctual  place, 
when  and  where  pure  Divine  truth  had  been  sifted 
from  the  errors  of  the  Nations ;  and  that  your  papa  had 
been  providentially  disposed  to  buy  a  house  in  the 
convenient  neighbourhood  of  the  steeple  under  which 
that  Immaculate  and  final  verity  would  be  beautifully 
proclaimed.  Do  not  think  it,  child ;  it  is  not  so.  This, 
on  the  contrary,  is  the  fact, — unpleasant  you  may  think 
it ;  pleasant,  it  seems  to  me, — that  you,  with  all  your 
pretty  dresses,  and  dainty  looks,  and  kindly  thoughts, 
and  saintly  aspirations,  are  not  one  whit  more  thought 
of  or  loved  by  the  great  Maker  and  Master  than  any 
poor  little  red,  black,  or  blue  savage,  running  wild  in 


PKEFACE.  XI 

the  pestilent  woods,  or  naked  on  the  hot  sands  of  the 
earth :  and  that,  of  the  two,  you  probably  know  less 
about  God  than  she  does ;  the  only  difference  being 
that  she  thinks  little  of  Him  that  is  right,  and.  you, 
much  that  is  wrong. 

That,  then,  is  the  first  thing  to  make  sure  of ; — that 
you  are  not  yet  perfectly  well  informed  on  the  most 
abstruse  of  all  possible  subjects,  and  that,  if  you  care 
to  behave  with  modesty  or  propriety,  you  had  better  be 
silent  about  it. 

VIII.  The  second  thing  which  you  may  make  sure  of 
is,  that  however  good  you  may  be,  you  have  faults  ;  that 
however  dull  you  may  be,  you  can  find  out  what  some 
of  them  are  ;  and  that  however  slight  they  may  be,  you 
had  better  make  some — not  too  painful,  but  patient — 
effort  to  get  quit  of  them.  And  so  far  as  you  have 
confidence  in  me  at  all,  trust  me  for  this,  that  how 
manv  soever  you  may  find  or  fancy  your  faults  to  be, 
there  are  only  two  that  are  of  real  consequence, — Idle- 
ness and  Cruelty.  Perhaps  you  may  be  proud.  Well, 
we  can  get  much  good  out  of  pride,  if  only  it  be  not 
religious.  Perhaps  you  may  be  vain  :  it  is  highly 
probable  ;  and  very  pleasant  for  the  people  who  like  to 
praise  you.     Perhaps  you  are  a  little  envious  :  that  is 


xii  PREFACE. 

really  very  shocking  ;  but  then — so  is  everybody  else. 
Perhaps,  also,  you  are  a  little  malicious,  which  I  am 
truly  concerned  to  hear,  but  should  probably  only  the 
more,  if  I  knew  you,  enjoy  your  conversation.  But 
whatever  else  you  may  be,  you  must  not  be  useless, 
and  you  must  not  be  cruel.  If  there  is  any  one  point 
which,  in  six  thousand  years  of  thinking  about  right 
and  wrong,  wise  and  good  men  have  agreed  upon,  or 
successively  by  experience  discovered,  it  is  that  God 
dislikes  idle  and  cruel  people  more  than  any  other ; — 
that  His  first  order  is,  "  Work  while  you  have  light ; " 
and  His  second,  "  Be  merciful  while  you  have  mercy." 

"  Work  while  you  have  light,"  especially  while  you 
have  the  light  of  morning.  There  are  few  things  more 
wonderful  to  me  than  that  old  people  never  tell  young 
ones  how  precious  their  youth  is.  They  sometimes 
sentimentally  regret  their  own  earlier  days  ;  sometimes 
prudently  forget  them  ;  often  foolishly  rebuke  the 
young,  often  more  foolishly  indulge,  often  most  fool- 
ishly thwart  and  restrain ;  but  scarcely  ever  warn  or 
watch  them.  Remember,  then,  that  I,  at  deast,  have 
warned  you,  that  the  happiness  of  your  life,  and  its 
power,  and  its  part  and  rank  in  earth  or  in  heaven,  de- 
pend on  the  way  you  pass  your  days  now.     They  are 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

not  to  be  sad  days  ;  far  from  that,  the  first  duty  of 
young  people  is  to  be  delighted  and  delightful ;  but 
they  are  to  be  in  the  deepest  sense  solemn  days. 
There  is  no  solemnity  so  deep,  to  a  rightly-thinking  crea- 
ture, as  that  of  dawn.  But  not  only  in  that  beautiful 
sense,  but  in  all  their  character  and  method,  they  are 
to  be  solemn  days.  Take  your  Latin  dictionary,  and 
look  out  "  sollennis,"  and  fix  the  sense  of  the  word  well 
in  your  mind,  and  remember  that  every  day  of  your 
early  life  is  ordaining  irrevocably,  for  good  or  evil,  the 
custom  and  practice  of  your  soul ;  ordaining  either  sa- 
cred customs  of  dear  and  lovely  recurrence,  or  trench- 
ing deeper  and  deeper  the  furrows  for  seed  of  sorrow. 
Now,  therefore,  see  that  no  day  passes  in  which  you  do 
not  make  yourself  a  somewhat  better  creature  ;  and  in 
order  to  do  that,  find  out,  first,  what  you  are  now.  Do 
not  think  vaguely  about  it ;  take  pen* and  paper,  and 
write  down  as  accurate  a  description  of  yourself  as  you 
can,  with  the  date  to  it.  If  you  dare  not  do  so,  find  out 
why  you  dare  not,  and  try  to  get  strength  of  heart 
enough  to  look  yourself  fairly  in  the  face,  in  mind  as 
well  as  body.  I  do  not  doubt  but  that  the  mind  is  a 
less  pleasant  thing  to  look  at  than  the  face,  and  for 
that  very  reason  it  needs  more  looking  at ;  so  always 


XIV  PEEFACE. 

have  two  mirrors  on  your  toilet  table,  and  see  that  with 
proper  care  you  dress  body  and  mind  before  them 
daily.  After  the  dressing  is  once  over  for  the  day, 
think  no  more  about  it :  as  your  hair  will  blow  about 
your  ears,  so  your  tender  and  thoughts  will  get  ruffled 
with  the  day's  work,  and  may  need,  sometimes,  twice 
dressing ;  but  I  don't  want  you  to  carry  about  a  mental 
pocket  comb  ;  only  to  be  smooth  braided  always  in  the 
morning. 

IX.  Write  down  then,  frankly,  what  you  are,  or,  at 
least,  what  you  think  yourself,  not  dwelling  upon  those 
inevitable  faults  which  I  have  just  told  you  are  of  little 
consequence,  and  which  the  action  of  a  right  life  will 
shake  or  smooth  away ;  but  that  you  may  determine  to 
the  best  of  your  intelligence  what  you  are  good  for,  and 
can  be  made  into.  You  will  find  that  the  mere  resolve 
not  to  be  useless,  and  the  honest  desire  to  help  other 
people,  will,  in  the  quickest  and  delicatest  ways,  improve 
yourself.  Thus,  from  the  beginning,  consider  all  your 
accomplishments  as  means  of  assistance  to  others ;  read 
attentively,  in  this  volume,  paragraphs  74,  75,  19,  and 
79,  and  you  will  understand  what  I  mean,  with  respect 
to  languages  and  music.  In  music  especially  you  will 
soon  find  what  personal  benefit  there  is  in  being  ser- 


PREFACE.  XV 

viceable  :  it  is  probable  that,  however  limited  your 
powers,  you  have  voice  and  ear  enough  to  sustain  a  note 
of  moderate  compass  in  a  concerted  piece  ; — that,  then, 
is  the  first  thing  to  make  sure  you  can  do.  Get  your 
voice  disciplined  and  clear,  and  think  only  of  accuracy ; 
never  of  effect  or  expression  :  if  you  have  any  soul 
worth  expressing  it  will  show  itself  in  your  singing ; 
but  most  likely  there  are  very  few  feelings  in  you,  at 
present,  needing  any  particular  expression ;  and  the 
one  thing  you  have  to  do  is  to  make  a  clear-voiced  lit- 
tle instrument  of  yourself,  which  other  people  can  en- 
tirely depend  upon  for  the  note  wanted.  So,  in  draw- 
ing, as  soon  as  you  can  set  down  the  right  shape  of 
anything,  and  thereby  explain  its  character  to  another 
person,  or  make  the  look  of  it  clear  and  interesting  to 
a  child,  you  will  begin  to  enjoy  the  art  vividly  for  its 
own  sake,  and  all  your  habits  of  mind  and  powers  of 
memory  will  gain  precision  :  but  if  you  only  try  to 
make  showy  drawings  for  praise,  or  pretty  ones  for 
amusement,  your  drawing  will  have  little  or  real  inter- 
est for  you,  and  no  educational  power  whatever. 

Then,  besides  this  more  delicate  work,  resolve  to  do 
every  day  some  that  is  useful  in  the  vulgar  sense.  Learn 
first  thoroughly  the  economy  of  the  kitchen ;  the  good 


XVI  TREFACE. 

and  bad  qualities  of  every  common  article  of  food,  and 
the  simplest  and  best  modes  of  their  preparation : 
when  you  have  time,  go  and  help  in  the  cooking  of 
poorer  families,  and  show  them  how  to  make  as  much 
of  everything  as  possible,  and  how  to  make  little,  nice  ; 
coaxing  and  tempting  them  into  tidy  and  pretty  ways, 
and  pleading  for  well-folded  table-cloths,  however 
coarse,  and  for  a  flower  or  two  out  of  the  garden  to 
strew  on  them.  If  you  manage  to  get  a  clean  table- 
cloth, bright  plates  on  it,  and  a  good  dish  in  the  mid- 
dle, of  your  own  cooking,  you  may  ask  leave  to  say  a 
short  grace  ;  and  let  your  religious  ministries  be  con- 
fined to  that  much  for  the  present. 

X.  Again,  let  a  certain  part  of  your  day  (as  little  as  you 
choose,  but  not  to  be  broken  in  upon)  be  set  apart  for 
making  strong  and  pretty  dresses  for  the  poor.  Learn 
the  sound  qualities  of  all  useful  stuffs,  and  make  every- 
thing of  the  best  you  can  get,  whatever  its  price.  I 
have  many  reasons  for  desiring  you  to  do  this, — too 
many  to  be  told  just  now, — trust  me,  and  be  sure  you 
get  everything  as  good  as  can  be  :  and  if,  in  the  vil- 
lainous state  of  moderate  trade,  you  cannot  get  it  good 
at  any  price,  buy  its  raw  material,  and  set  some  of  the 
poor  women  about  you  to  spin  and  weave,  till  you  have 


preface.  rvdi 

got  stuff  that  can  be  trusted  :  and  then,  every  day, 
make  some  little  piece  of  useful  clothing,  sewn  with 
your  own  fingers  as  strongly  as  it  can  be  stitched ;  and 
embroider  it  or  otherwise  beautify  it  moderately  with 
fine  needlework,  such  as  a  girl  may  be  proud  of  having 
done.  And  accumulate  these  things  by  you  until  you 
hear  of  some  honest  persons  in  need  of  clothing,  which 
may  often  too  sorrowfully  be  ;  and,  even  though  you 
should  be  deceived,  and  give  them,  to  the  dishonest,  and 
hear  of  their  being  at  once  taken  to  the  pawnbroker's, 
never  mind  that,  for  the  pawnbroker  must  sell  them  to 
some  one  who  has  need  of  them.  That  is  no  business 
of  yours  ;  what  concerns  you  is  only  that  when  you  see 
a  half -naked  child,  you  should  have  good  and  fresh 
clothes  to  give  it,  if  its  parents  will  let  it  be  taught  to 
wear  them.  If  they  will  not,  consider  how  they  came 
to  be  of  such  a  mind,  which  it  will  be  wholesome  for 
you  beyond  most  subjects  of  inquiry  to  ascertain. 
And  after  you  have  gone  on  doing  this  a  little  while, 
you  will  begin  to  understand  the  meaning  of  at  least 
one  chapter  of  your  Bible,  Proverbs  sxxi.,  without 
need  of  any  laboured  comment,  sermon,  or  meditation. 
XI.  In  these,  then  (and  of  course  in  all  minor  ways 
besides,  that  you  can  discover  in  your  own  household), 


XY111  PBEFACE. 

you  must  be  to  the  best  of  your  strength  usefully  em- 
ployed during  the  greater  part  of  the  day,  so  that  you 
may  be  able  at  the  end  of  it  to  say,  as  proudly  as  any 
peasant,  that  you  have  not  eaten  the  bread  of  idleness. 
Then,  secondly,  I  said,  you  are  not  to  be  cruel.  Per- 
haps you  think  there  is  no  chance  of  your  being  so ; 
and  indeed  I  hope  it  is  not  likely  that  you  should 
be  deliberately  unkind  to  any  creature  ;  but  unless 
you  are  deliberately  kind  to  every  creature,  you  will 
often  be  cruel  to  many.  Cruel,  partly  through  want  of 
imagination  (a  far  rarer  and  weaker  faculty  in  women 
than  men),  and  yet  more,  at  the  present  day,  through 
the  subtle  encouragement  of  your  selfishness  by  the 
religious  doctrine  that  all  which  we  now  suppose  to  be 
evil  will  be  brought  to  a  good  end  ;  doctrine  practically 
issuing,  not  in  less  earnest  efforts  that  the  immediate 
unpleasantness  may  be  averted  from  ourselves,  but  in 
our  remaining  satisfied  in  the  contemplation  of  its  ulti- 
mate objects,  when  it  is  inflicted  on  others. 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  more  accurate  methods  of  re- 
cent mental  education  will  now  long  permit  young  people 
to  grow  up  in  the  persuasion  that,  in  any  danger  or  dis- 
tress, they  may  expect  to  be  themselves  saved  by  the 
providence  of  God,  while  those  around  them  are  lost  by 


PREFACE  XIX 

His  Improvidence  :  but  they  may  be  yet  long  restrained 
from  rightly  kind  action,  and  long  accustomed  to  endure 
both  their  own  pain  occasionally,  and  the  pain  of  others 
always,  with  an  unwise  patience,  by  misconception  of  the 
eternal  and  incurable  nature  of  real  evil.  Observe,  there- 
fore, carefully  in  this  matter  :  there  are  degrees  of  pain, 
as  degrees  of  faultfulness,  which  are  altogether  conquer- 
able, and  which  seem  to  be  merely  forms  of  wholesome 
trial  or  discipline.  Your  fingers  tingle  when  you  go  out 
on  a  frosty  morning,  and  are  all  the  warmer  afterwards  ; 
your  limbs  are  weary  with  wholesome  work,  and  lie 
down  in  the  pleasanter  rest ;  you  are  tried  for  a  little 
while  by  having  to  wait  for  some  promised  good,  and  it 
is  all  the  sweeter  when  it  comes.  But  you  cannot  carry 
the  trial  past  a  certain  point.  Let  the  cold  fasten  on 
your  hand  in  an  extreme  degree,  and  your  fingers  will 
moulder  from  their  sockets.  Fatigue  yourself,  but 
once,  to  utter  exhaustion,  and  to  the  end  of  life  you 
shall  not  recover  the  former  vigour  of  your  frame.  Let 
heart-sickness  pass  beyond  a  certain  bitter  point,  and 
the  heart  loses  its  life  forever. 

Now,  the  very  definition  of  evil  is  in  this  irremediable- 
ness.  It  means  sorrow,  or  sin,  which  end  in  death  ;  and 
assuredly,  as  far  as  we  know,  or  can  conceive,  there  are 


XX  PREFACE. 

many  conditions  both  of  pain  and  sin  which  cannot  but 
so  end.  Of  course  we  are  ignorant  and  blind  creatures, 
and  we  cannot  know  what  seeds  of  good  may  be  in  pres- 
ent suffering,  or  present  crime  ;  but  with  what  we  can- 
not know,  we  are  not  concerned.  It  is  conceivable  that 
murderers  and  liars  may  in  some  distant  world  be  ex- 
alted into  a  higher  humanity  than  they  could  have 
reached  without  homicide  or  falsehood;  but  the  con- 
tingency is  not  one  by  which  our  actions  should  be 
guided.  There  is,  indeed,  a  better  hope  that  the 
beggar,  who  lies  at  our  gates  in  misery,  may,  within 
gates  of  pearl  be  comforted ;  but  the  Master,  whose 
words  are  our  only  authority  for  thinking  so,  never 
Himself  inflicted  disease  as  a  blessing,  nor  sent  away 
the  hungry  unfed,  or  the  wounded  unhealed. 

XII.  Believe  me,  then,  the  only  right  principle  of 
action  here,  is  to  consider  good  and  evil  as  defined  by  our 
natural  sense  of  both  ;  and  to  strive  to  promote  the  one, 
and  to  conquer  the  other,  with  as  hearty  endeavor  as  if 
there  were,  indeed,  no  other  world  than  this.  Above 
all,  get  quit  of  the  absurd  idea  that  Heaven  will  inter- 
fere to  correct  great  errors,  while  allowing  its  laws  to 
take  their  course  in  punishing  small  ones.  If  you  pre- 
pare a  dish  of  food  carelessly,  you  do  not  expect  Provi- 


PEEFACE.  SSI 

dence  to  make  it  palatable  ;  neither,  if,  through  years 
of  folly,  you  misguide  your  own  life,  need  you  expect 
Divine  interference  to  bring  round  everything  at  last  for 
the  best.  I  tell  you,  positively,  the  world  is  not  so  con- 
stituted :  the  consequences  of  great  mistakes  are  just  as 
sure  as  those  of  small  ones,  and  the  happiness  of  your 
whole  life,  and  of  all  the  lives  over  which  you  have  power, 
depends  as  literally  on  your  own  common  sense  and  dis- 
cretion as  the  excellence  and  order  of  the  feast  of  a  day. 
XIII.  Think  carefully  and  bravely  over  these  things, 
and  you  will  find  them  true  :  having  found  them  so,  think 
also  carefully  over  your  own  position  in  life.  I  assume 
that  you  belong  to  the  middle  or  upper  classes,  and 
that  you  would  shrink  from  descending  into  a  lower 
sphere.  You  may  fancy  you  would  not :  nay,  if  you  are 
very  good,  strong-hearted,  and  romantic,  perhaps  you 
really  would  not ;  but  it  is  not  wrong  that  you  should. 
Tou  have  then,  I  suppose,  good  food,  pretty  rooms  to 
live  in,  pretty  dresses  to  wear,  power  of  obtaining  every 
rational  and  wholesome  pleasure ;  you  are,  moreover, 
probably  gentle  and  grateful,  and  in  the  habit  of  every 
day  thanking  God  for  these  things.  But  why  do  you 
thank  Him  ?  Is  it  because,  in  these  matters,  as  well  as 
in  your  religious  knowledge,  you  think  He  has  made 


XX11  PREFACE. 

a  favourite  of  you.  Is  the  essential  meaning  of  your 
thanksgiving,  "Lord,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as 
other  girls  are,  not  in  that  I  fast  twice  in  the  week 
while  they  feast,  but  in  that  I  feast  seven  times  a  week, 
while  they  fast,"  and  are  you  quite  sure  this  is  a  pleasing 
form  of  thanksgiving  to  your  Heavenly  Father?  Sup- 
pose you  saw  one  of  your  own  true  earthly  sisters,  Lucy 
or  Emily,  cast  out  of  your  mortal  father's  house,  starv- 
ing, helpless,  heartbroken ;  and  that  every  morning 
when  you  went  into  your  father's  room,  you  said  to  him, 
"  How  good  you  are,  father,  to  give  me  what  you  don't 
give  Lucy,"  are  you  sure  that,  whatever  anger  your 
parent  might  have  just  cause  for,  against  your  sister,  he 
would  be  pleased  by  that  thanksgiving,  or  flattered  by 
that  praise  ?  Nay,  are  you  even  sure  that  you  are  so 
much  the  favourite :  suppose  that,  all  this  while,  he 
loves  poor  Lucy  just  as  well  as  you,  and  is  only  trying 
you  through  her  pain,  and  perhaps  not  angry  with 
her  in  anywise,  but  deeply  angry  with  you,  and  all 
the  more  for  your  thanksgivings?  Would  it  not  be 
well  that  you  should  think,  and  earnestly  too  over 
this  standing  of  yours :  and  all  the  more  if  you  wish 
to  believe  that  text,  which  clergymen  so  much  dis- 
like preaching  on,  "  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have 


preface.  xxiii 

riches  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God  ?  "  You  do  not 
believe  it  now,  or  you  would  be  less  complacent  in 
your  state ;  and  you  cannot  believe  it  at  all,  until  you 
know  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  means — "  not  meat 
and  drink,  but  justice,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  nor  until  you  know  also  that  such  joy  is  not 
by  any  means,  necessarily,  in  going  to  church,  or  in 
singing  hymns  ;  but  may  be  joy  in  a  dance,  or  joy  in 
a  jest,  or  joy  in  anything  you  have  deserved  to  possess, 
or  that  you  are  willing  to  give  ;  but  joy  in  nothing  that 
separates  you,  as  by  any  strange  favour,  from  your 
fellow- creatures,  that  exalts  you  through  their  degra- 
dation— exempts  you  from  their  toil — or  indulges  you 
in  time  of  their  distress. 

XIV.  Think,  then,  and  some  day,  I  believe,  you  will  feel 
also — no  morbid  passion  of  pity  such  as  would  turn  you 
into  a  black  Sister  of  Charity,  but  the  steady  fire  of 
perpetual  kindness  which  will  make  you  a  bright  one. 
I  speak  in  no  disparagement  of  them ;  I  know  well  how 
good  the  Sisters  of  Charity  are,  and  how  much  we  owe 
to  them ;  but  all  these  professional  pieties  (except  so 
far  as  distinction  or  association  may  be  necessary  for 
effectiveness  of  work)  are  in  their  spirit  wrong,  and  in 
practice  merely  plaster  the  sores  of  disease  that  ought 


Xxiv  PREFACE. 

never  have  been  permitted  to  exist ;  encouraging  at  the 
same  time  the  herd  of  less  excellent  women  in  frivolity, 
by  leading  them  to  think  that  they  must  either  be  good 
up  to  the  black  standard,  or  cannot  be  good  for  any- 
thing.  "Wear  a  costume,  by  all  means,  if  you  like  ;  but 
let  it  be  a  cheerful  and  becoming  one ;  and  be  in  your 
heart  a  Sister  of  Charity  always,  without  either  veiled 
or  voluble  declaration  of  it. 

XV.  As  I  pause,  before  ending  my  preface — thinking 
of  one  or  two  more  points  that  are  difficult  to  write  of — 
I  find  a  letter  in  The  Times,  from  a  French  lady,  which 
says  all  I  want  so  beautifully,  that  I  will  print  it  just 
as  it  stands : 

Sir, — It  is  often  said  that  one  example  is  worth  many 
sermons.  Shall  I  be  judged  presumptuous  if  I  point  out 
one,  which  seems  to  me  so  striking  just  now,  that,  however 
painful,  I  cannot  help  dwelling  upon  it  ? 

It  is  the  share,  the  sad  and  large  share,  that  French  so- 
ciety and  its  recent  habits  of  luxury,  of  expenses,  of  dress, 
of  indulgence  in  every  kind  of  extravagant  dissipation,  has 
to  lay  to  its  own  door  in  its  actual  crisis  of  ruin,  misery, 
and  humiliation.  If  our  menageres  can  be  cited  as  an  ex-= 
ample  to  English  housewives,  so,  alas  !  can  other  classes  of 
our  society  be  set  up  as  an  example — not  to  be  followed. 

Bitter  must  be  the  feelings  of  many  a  French  woman 


PREFACE.  XXV 

whose  days  of  luxury  and  expensive  habits  are  at  an  end: 
and  whose  bills  of  bygone  splendour  lie  with  a  heavy  weight 
on  her  conscience,  if  not  on  her  purse  ! 

With  us  the  evil  has  spread  high  and  low.  Everywhere 
have  the  examples  given  by  the  highest  ladies  in  the  land 
been  followed  but  too  successfully. 

Every  year  did  dress  become  more  extravagant,  entertain- 
ments more  costly,  expenses  of  every  kind  more  considerable. 
Lower  and  lower  became  the  tone  of  society,  its  good  breed- 
ing, its  delicacy.  More  and  more  were  monde  and  demi-monde 
associated  in  newspaper  accounts  of  fashionable  doings,  in 
scandalous  gossip,  on  racecourses,  in  premieres  representa- 
tions, in  imitation  of  each  other's  costumes,  mohiliers  and  slang. 

Living  beyond  one's  means  became  habitual — almost  neces- 
sary— for  every  one  to  keep  up  with,  if  not  to  go  beyond, 
every  one  else. 

What  the  result  of  all  this  has  been  we  now  see  in  the 
wreck  of  our  prosperity,  in  the  downfall  of  all  that  seemed 
brightest  and  highest. 

Deeply  and  fearfully  impressed  by  what  my  own  country 
has  incurred  and  is  suffering,  I  cannot  help  feeling  sorrowful 
when  I  see  in  England  signs  of  our  besetting  sins  appearing 
also.  Paint  and  chignons,  slang  and  vaudevilles,  knowing 
"  Anonymas"  by  name,  and  reading  doubtfully  moral  novels, 
are  in  themselves  small  offences,  although  not  many  years 
ago  they  would  have  appeared  very  heinous  ones,  yet  they 
are  quick  and  tempting  conveyances  on  a  very  dangerous 
high-road. 


XXVI  PEEFACE. 

I  would  that  all  Englishwomen  knew  how  they  are  looked 
up  to  from  abroad — what  a  high  opinion,  what  honour  and 
reverence  Ave  foreigners  have  for  their  principles,  their  truth- 
fulness, the  fresh  and  pure  innocence  of  their  daughters,  the 
healthy  youthfulness  of  their  lovely  children. 

May  I  illustrate  this  by  a  short  example  which  happened 
very  near  me?  During  the  days  of  the  emeutes  of  1848,  all 
the  houses  in  Paris  were  being  searched  for  firearms  by  the 
mob.  The  one  I  was  living  in  contained  none,  as  the  master 
of  the  house  repeatedly  assured  the  furious  and  incredulous 
Republicans.  They  were  going  to  lay  violent  hands  on  him, 
when  his  wife,  an  English  lady,  hearing  the  loud  discussion, 
came  bravely  forward  and  assured  them  that  no  arms  were 
concealed.  "Vous  etes  anglaise,  nous  vous  croyons;  les 
anglaises  discnt  tou jours  la  verite,"  was  the  immediate 
answer,  and  the  rioters  quietly  left. 

Now,  Sir,  shall  I  be  accused  of  unjustified  criticism  if, 
loving  and  admiring  your  country,  as  these  lines  will  prove, 
certain  new  features  strike  me  as  painful  discrepancies  in 
English  life  ? 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  preach  the  contempt  of  all  that  can 
make  life  lovable  and  wholesomely  pleasant.  I  love  nothing 
better  than  to  see  a  woman  nice,  neat,  elegant,  looking 
her  best  in  the  prettiest  dress  that  her  taste  and  purse  can 
afford,  or  your  bright,  fresh  young  girls  fearlessly  and  per- 
fectly  sitting  their  horses,  or  adorning  their  houses  as  pretty 
[sic;  it  is  not  quite  grammar,  but  it  is  better  than  if  it  were;] 
as  care,  trouble,  and  refinement  can  make  them. 


PREFACE.  XXY11 

It  is  the  degree  beyond  that  which  to  us  has  proved  so 
fatal,  and  that  I  would  our  example  could  warn  you  from, 
as  a  small  repayment  for  your  hospitality  and  friendliness  to 
us  in  our  days  of  trouble. 

May  Englishwomen  accept  this  in  a  kindly  spirit  as  a  new- 
year's  wish  from 

French  Lady. 

Dec.  20. 

That,  then,  is  the  substance  of  what  I  would  fain  say 
convincingly,  if  it  might  be,  to  my  girl  friends ;  at  all 
events  with  certainty  in  my  own  mind  that  I  was  thus 
far  a  safe  guide  to  them. 

XVI.  For  other  and  older  readers  it  is  needful  I  should 
write  a  few  words  more,  respecting  what  opportunity  I 
have  had  to  judge,  or  right  I  have  to  speak,  of  such 
things  ;  for,  indeed,  too  much  of  what  I  have  said  about 
women  has  been  said  in  faith  only.  A  wise  and  lovely 
English  lady  told  me,  when  Sesame  and  Lilies  first 
appeared,  that  she  was  sure  the  Sesame  would  be  use- 
ful, but  that  in  the  Lilies  I  had  been  writing  of  what 
I  knew  nothing  about.  Which  was  in  a  measure  too 
true,  and  also  that  it  is  more  partial  than  my  writings 
are  usually :  for  as  Ellesmere  spoke  his  speech  on  the 

intervention,  not  indeed  otherwise  than  he  felt, 

but  yet  altogether  for  the  sake  of  Gretchen,  so  I  wrote 


XXV111  TEEFACE. 

the  Lilies  to  please  one  girl ;  and  were  it  not  for  what 
1  remember  of  her,  and  of  few  besides,  should  now 
perhaps  recast  some  of  the  sentences  in  the  Lilies  in  a 
very  different  tone :  for  as  years  have  gone  by,  it  has 
chanced  to  me,  untowardly  in  some  respects,  fortunately 
in  others  (because  it  enables  me  to  read  history  more 
clearly),  to  see  the  utmost  evil  that  is  in  women,  while 
T  have  had  but  to  believe  the  utmost  good.  The  best 
women  are  indeed  necessarily  the  most  difficult  to 
know ;  they  are  recognized  chiefly  in  the  happiness  of 
their  husbands  and  the  nobleness  of  their  children ; 
they  are  only  to  be  divined,  not  discerned,  by  the 
stranger ;  and,  sometimes,  seem  almost  helpless  except 
in  their  homes  ;  yet  without  the  help  of  one  of  them,* 
to  whom  this  book  is  dedicated,  the  day  would  probably 
have  come  before  now,  when  I  should  have  written  and 
thought  no  more. 

XVII.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fashion  of  the  time 
renders  whatever  is  forward,  coarse  or  senseless,  in  fem- 
inine nature,  too  palpable  to  all  men  : — the  weak  pictur- 
esqueness  of  my  earlier  writings  brought  me  acquainted 
with  much  of  their  emptiest  enthusiasm  ;  and  the  chances 
of  later  life  gave  me  opportunities  of  watching  women  in 


PREFACE.  XXIX 

states  of  degradation  and  vindictiveness  which  opened 
to  me  the  gloomiest  secrets  of  Greek  and  Syrian  tragedy. 
I  have  seen  them  betray  their  household  charities  to 
lust,  their  pledged  love  to  devotion ;  I  have  seen  mothers 
dutiful  to  their  children,  as  Medea ;  and  children  dutiful 
to  their  parents,  as  the  daughter  of  Herodias  :  but  my 
trust  is  still  unmoved  in  the  preciousness  of  the  natures 
that  are  so  fatal  in  their  error,  and  I  leave  the  words 
of  the  Lilies  unchanged ;  believing,  yet,  that  no  man 
ever  lived  a  right  life  who  had  not  been  chastened  by  a 
woman's  love,  strengthened  by  her  courage,  and  guided 
by  her  discretion. 

XVIII.  What  I  might  myself  have  been,  so  helped,  I 
rarely  indulge  in  the  idleness  of  thinking ;  but  what  I 
am,  since  I  take  on  me  the  function  of  a  teacher,  it  is 
well  that  the  reader  should  know,  as  far  as  I  can  tell  him. 

Not  an  unjust  person ;  not  an  unkind  one ;  not  a 
false  one  ;  a  lover  of  order,  labor,  and  peace.  That, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  enough  to  give  me  right  to  say  all  I 
care  to  say  on  ethical  subjects  :  more,  I  could  only  tell 
definitely  through  details  of  autobiography  such  as  none 
but  prosperous  and  (in  the  simple  sense  of  the  word) 
faultless,  lives  could  justify ; — and  mine  has  been  neither. 
Yet,  if  any  one,  skilled  in  reading  the  torn  manuscripts 


XXX  PREFACE. 

of  the  human  soul,  cares  for  more  intimate  knowledge 
of  me,  he  may  have  it  by  knowing  with  what  persons  in 
past  history  I  have  most  sympathy. 

I  will  name  three. 

In  all  that  is  strongest  and  deepest  in  me, — that  fits 
me  for  my  work,  and  gives  light  or  shadow  to  my  being, 
I  have  sympathy  with  Guido  Guinicelli. 

In  my  constant  natural  temper,  and  thoughts  of  things 
and  of  people,  with  Marmontel. 

In  my  enforced  and  accidental  temper,  and  thoughts 
of  things  and  of  people,  with  Dean  Swift. 

Any  one  who  can  understand  the  natures  of  those 
three  men,  can  understand  mine;  and  having  said  so 
much,  I  am  content  to  leave  both  life .  and  work  to  be 
remembered  or  forgotten,  as  their  uses  may  deserve. 

Denmark  Hill, 

1st  January,  1871. 


PREFACE-FIRST  EDITION. 


A  passage  in  the  fifty-third  page  of  this  book,  refer- 
ring to  Alpine  travellers,  will  fall  harshly  on  the  read- 
er's ear  since  it  has  been  sorrowfully  enforced  by  the 
deaths  on  Mont  Cervin.  I  leave  it,  nevertheless,  as  it 
stood,  for  I  do  not  now  write  unadvisedly,  and  think  it 
wrong  to  cancel  what  has  once  been  thoughtfully  said  ; 
but  it  must  not  so  remain  without  a  few  added  words. 

No  blame  ought  to  attach  to  the  Alpine  tourist  for 
incurring  danger.  There  is  usually  sufficient  cause,  and 
real  reward,  for  all  difficult  work ;  and  even  were  it  other- 
wise, some  experience  of  distinct  peril,  and  the  acquire- 
ment of  habits  of  quick  and  calm  action  in  its  presence, 
are  necessary  elements,  at  some  period  of  life,  in  the 
formation  of  manly  character.  The  blame  of  bribing 
guides  into  danger  is  a  singular  accusation,  in  behalf  of 
a  people  who  have  made  mercenary  soldiers  of  them- 
selves for  centuries,  without  any  one's  thinking  of  giv- 
ing their  fidelity  better  employment :  though,  indeed, 

xxxi 


XXX11  PEEFACE. 

the  piece  of  work  they  did  at  the  gate  of  the  Tuileries, 
however  useless,  was  no  unwise  one  ;  and  their  lion  of 
flawed  molasse  at  Lucerne,  worthless  in  point  of  art 
though  it  be,  is  nevertheless  a  better  reward  than  much 
pay;  and  a  better  ornament  to  the  old  town  than  the 
Schweizer  Hof,  or  flat  new  quay,  for  the  promenade  of 
those  travellers  who  do  not  take  guides  into  danger. 
The  British  public  are  however,  at  home,  so  innocent 
of  ever  buying  their  fellow  creatures'  lives,  that  we  may 
justly  expect  them  to  be  punctilious  abroad  !  They  do 
not,  perhaps,  often  calculate  how  many  souls  flit  annu- 
ally, choked  in  fire-damp  and  sea-sand,  from  economi- 
cally watched  shafts,  and  economically  manned  ships ; 
nor  see  the  fiery  ghosts  writhe  up  out  of  every  scuttle- 
ful  of  cheap  coals  :  nor  count  how  many  threads  of  girl- 
ish life  are  cut  off  and  woven  annnally  by  painted  Fates, 
into  breadths  of  ball-dresses ;  or  soaked  away,  like  rot- 
ten hemp-fibre,  in  the  inlet  of  Cocytus  which  overflows 
the  Grassmarket  where  flesh  is  as  grass.  We  need  not, 
it  seems  to  me,  loudly  blame  any  one  for  paying  a  guide 
to  take  a  brave  walk  with  him.  Therefore,  gentlemen 
of  the  Alpine  Club,  as  much  danger  as  you  care  to  face, 
by  all  means ;  but,  if  it  please  you,  not  so  much  talk  of 
it.     The  real  ground  of  reprehension  of  Alpine  climb- 


preface.  xxxiii 

ing  is  that,  with  less  cause,  it  excites  more  vanity  than 
any  other  athletic  skill.  A  good  horseman  knows  what  it 
has  cost  to  make  him  one  ;  everybody  else  knows  it  too, 
and  knows  that  he  is  one  ;  he  need  not  ride  at  a  fence 
merely  to  show  his  seat.  But  credit  for  practice  in  climb- 
ing can  only  be  claimed  after  success,  which,  though  per- 
haps accidental  and  unmerited,  must  yet  be  attained  at 
all  risks,  or  the  shame  of  defeat  borne  with  no  evidence 
of  the  difficulties  encountered.  At  this  particular  pe- 
riod, also,  the  distinction  obtainable  by  first  conquest  of 
a  peak  is  as  tempting  to  a  traveller  as  the  discovery  of 
a  new  element  to  a  chemist,  or  of  a  new  species  to  a  nat- 
uralist. Vanity  is  never  so  keenly  excited  as  by  com- 
petitions which  involve  chance  ;  the  course  of  science  is 
continually  arrested,  and  its  nomenclature  fatally  con- 
fused, by  the  eagerness  of  even  wise  and  able  men  to  es- 
tablish their  priority  in  an  unimportant  discovery,  or  ob- 
tain vested  right  to  a  syllable  in  a  deformed  word ;  and 
many  an  otherwise  sensible  person  will  risk  his  life  for 
the  sake  of  a  line  in  future  guide-books,  to  the  fact  that 

" horn  was  first  ascended  by  Mr.  X.    in  the  year 

"  ;  —  never  reflecting  that   of  all  the  lines  in  the 

page,  the  one  he  has  thus  wrought  for  will  be  precisely 

the  least  interesting  to  the  reader. 
3 


XXXIV  PREFACE. 

It  is  not  therefore  strange,  however  much  to  be  re- 
gretted, that  while  no  gentleman  boasts  in  other  cases 
of  his  sagacity  or  his  courage — while  no  good  soldier 
talks  of  the  charge  he  led,  nor  any  good  sailor  of  the 
helm  he  held, — every  man  among  the  Alps  seems  to 
lose  his  senses  and  modesty  with  the  fall  of  the  barom- 
eter, and  returns  from  his  Nephelo-coccygia  brandish- 
ing his  ice-axe  in  everybody's  face.  Whatever  the 
Alpine  Club  have  done,  or  may  yet  accomplish,  is  a 
sincere  thirst  for  mountain  knowledge,  and  in  happy 
sense  of  youthful  strength  and  play  of  animal  spirit, 
they  have  done,  and  will  do,  wisely  and  well ;  but  what- 
ever they  are  urged  to  by  mere  sting  of  competition  and 
itch  of  praise,  they  will  do,  as  all  vain  things  must  be 
done  for  ever,  foolishly  and  ill.  It  is  a  strange  proof 
of  that  absence  of  any  real  national  love  of  science,  of 
which  I  have  had  occasion  to  speak  in  the  text,  that  no 
entire  survey  of  the  Alps  has  yet  been  made  by  properly 
qualified  men ;  and  that,  except  of  the  chain  of  Cha- 
mouni,  no  accurate  maps  exist,  nor  any  complete  geo- 
logical section  even  of  that.  But  Mr.  Eeilly's  survey  of 
that  central  group,  and  the  generally  accurate  informa- 
tion collected  in  the  guide-book  published  by  the  Club, 
are  honourable  results  of  English  adventure  ;   and  it  is 


PREFACE.  XXXV 

to  be  hoped  that  the  continuance  of  such  work  will 
gradually  put  an  end  to  the  vulgar  excitement  which 
looked  upon  the  granite  of  the  Alps  only  as  an  unoc- 
cupied advertisement  wall  for  chalking  names  upon. 

Respecting  the  means  of  accomplishing  such  work  with 
least  risk,  there  was  a  sentence  in  the  article  of  our  lead- 
ing public  journal,  which  deserves,  and  requires  ex- 
pansion. 

"Their"  (the  Alpine  Club's)  "ropes  must  not  break." 

Certainly  not!  nor  any  one  else's  ropes,  if  they  maybe 
rendered  unbreakable  by  honesty  of  make ;  seeing  that 
more  lives  hang  by  them  on  moving  than  on  montionless 
seas.  The  records  of  the  last  gale  at  the  Cape  may  teach 
us  that  economy  in  the  manufacture  of  cables  is  not 
always  a  matter  for  exultation  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  it 
might  even  be  well  in  an  honest  country,  sending  out, 
and  up  and  down,  various  lines  east  and  west,  that 
nothing  should  break ;  banks, —  words, — nor  dredging 
tackle. 

Granting,  however,  such  praise  and  such  sphere  of 
exertion  as  we  thus  justly  may,  to  the  spirit  of  adventure, 
there  is  one  consequence  of  it,  coming  directly  under 
my  own  cognizance,  of  which  I  cannot  but  speak  with 
utter  regret, — the  loss,  namely,  of  all  real  understanding 


XXX  VI  PREFACE. 

of  the  character  and  beauty  of  Switzerland,  by  the 
country's  being  now  regarded  as  half  watering-place, 
half  gymnasium.  It  is  indeed  true  that  under  the 
influence  of  the  pride  which  gives  poignancy  to  the 
sensations  which  others  cannot  share  with  us  (and  a 
not  unjustifiable  zest  to  the  pleasure  which  we  have 
worked  for),  an  ordinary  traveller  will  usually  observe 
and  enjoy  more  on  a  difficult  excursion  than  on  an  easy 
one  ;  and  more  in  objects  to  which  he  is  unaccustomed 
than  in  those  writh  which  he  is  familiar.  He  will  notice 
with  extreme  interest  that  snow  is  white  on  the  top  of 
a  hill  in  June,  though  he  would  have  attached  little 
importance  to  the  same  peculiarity  in  a  wreath  at  the 
bottom  of  a  hill  in  January.  He  will  generally  find 
more  to  admire  in  a  cloud  under  his  feet,  than  ixi  one 
over  his  head ;  and,  oppressed  by  the  monotony  of  a  sky 
which  is  prevalently  blue,  will  derive  extraordinary 
satisfaction  from  its  approximation  to  black.  Add  to 
such  grounds  of  delight  the  aid  given  to  the  effect  of 
whatever  is  impressive  in  the  scenery  of  the  high  Alps, 
by  the  absence  of  ludicrous  or  degrading  concomitants ; 
and  it  ceases  to  be  surprising  that  Alpine  excursionists 
should  be  greatly  pleased,  or  that  they  should  attribute 
their  pleasure  to  some  true  and  increased  apprehension 


PREFACE.  XXXvil 

of  the  nobleness  of  natural  scenery.  But  no  impression 
can  be  more  false.  The  real  beauty  of  the  Alps  is  to  be 
seen,  and  seen  only,  where  all  may  see  it,  the  child,  the 
cripple,  and  the  man  of  grey  hairs.  There  is  more  true 
loveliness  in  a  single  glade  of  pasture  shadowed  by 
pine,  or  gleam  of  rocky  brook,  or  inlet  of  unsullied  lake 
among  the  lower  Bernese  and  Savoyard  hills,  than  in 
the  entire  field  of  jagged  gneiss  which  crests  the  central 
ridge  from  the  Shreckhorn  to  the  Viso.  The  valley  of 
Cluse,  through  which  unhappy  travellers  consent  now 
to  be  invoiced,  packed  in  baskets  like  fish,  so  only  that 
they  may  cheaply  reach,  in  the  feverous  haste  which 
has  become  the  law  of  their  being,  the  glen  of  Chamouni 
whose  every  lovely  foreground  rock  has  now  been 
broken  up  to  build  hotels  for  them,  contains  more 
beauty  in  half  a  league  of  it,  than  the  entire  valley  they 
have  devastated,  and  turned  into  a  casino,  did  in  its 
uninjured  pride  ;  and  that  passage  of  the  Jura  by  Olten 
(between  Basle  and  Lucerne),  which  is  by  the  modern 
tourist  triumphantly  effected  through  a  tunnel  in  ten 
minutes,  between  two  piggish  trumpet  grunts  pro- 
clamatory  of  the  ecstatic  transit,  used  to  show  from 
every  turn  and  sweep  of  its  winding  ascent,  up  which 
one  sauntered,  gathering  wild-flowers,  for  half  a  happy 


XXXV111  TEEFACE. 

day,  diviner  aspects  of  the  distant  Alps  than  ever  wore 
achieved  by  toil  of  limb,  or  won  by  risk  of  life. 

There  is  indeed  a  healthy  enjoyment  both  in  engineers' 
work,  and  in  school-boy's  play;  the  making  and  mend- 
ing of  roads  has  its  true  enthusiasms,  and  I  have  still 
pleasure  enough  in  mere  scrambling  to  wonder  not  a 
little  at  the  supreme  gravity  with  which  apes  exercise 
their  superior  powers  in  that  kind,  as  if  profitless  to 
them.  But  neither  macadamisation,  nor  tunnelling,  nor 
rope  ladders,  vail  ever  enable  one  human  creature  to 
understand  the  pleasure  in  natural  scenery  felt  by 
Theocritus  or  Virgil ;  and  I  believe  the  athletic  health 
of  our  schoolboys  might  be  made  perfectly  consistent 
with  a  spirit  of  more  courtesy  and  reverence,  both  for 
men  and  things,  than  is  recognisable  in  the  behaviour 
of  modern  youth.  Some  year  or  two  back,  I  was  stay- 
ing at  the  Montanvert  to  paint  Alpine  roses,  and  went 
every  day  to  watch  the  budding  of  a  favorite  bed,  which 
was  rounding  into  faultless  bloom  beneath  a  cirque  of 
rock,  high  enough,  as  I  hoped,  and  close  enough,  to 
guard  it  from  rude  eyes  and  plucking  hands.     But, 

"  Tra  erto  e  piano  era  un  sentiero  ghembo, 
Che  ne  condusse  in  fiance-  del  a  lacca," 


PREFACE.  XXXIX. 

and  on  the  day  it  reached  the  fulness  of  its  rubied  fire, 
I  was  standing  near  when  it  was  discovered  by  a  forager 
on  the  flanks  of  a  travelling  school  of  English  and  Ger- 
man lads.  He  shouted  to  his  companions,  and  they 
swooped  down  upon  it ;  threw  themselves  into  it,  rolled 
over  and  over  in  it,  shrieked,  hallooed,  and  fought  in  it, 
trampled  it  down,  and  tore  it  up  by  the  roots  ;  breath- 
less at  last  with  rapture  of  ravage,  they  fixed  the 
brightest  of  the  remnant  blossoms  of  it  in  their  caps, 
and  went  on  their  way  rejoicing. 

They  left  me  much  to  think  upon  ;  partly  respecting 
the  essential  power  of  the  beauty  which  could  so  excite 
them,  and  partly  respecting  the  character  of  the  youth 
which  could  only  be  excited  to  destroy.  But  the  inci- 
dent was  a  perfect  type  of  that  irreverence  for  natural 
beauty  with  respect  to  which  I  said  in  the  text,  at  the 
place  already  indicated,  "  You  make  railroads  of  the 
aisles  of  the  cathedrals  of  the  earth,  and  eat  off  their 
altars."  For  indeed  all  true  lovers  of  natural  beauty 
hold  it  in  reverence  so  deep,  that  they  would  as  soon 
think  of  climbing  the  pillars  of  the  choir  Beauvais  for 
a  gymnastic  exercise,  as  of  making  a  play-ground  of 
Alpine  snow :  and  they  would  not  risk  one  hour  of  their 
joy  among  the  hill  meadows  on  a  May  morning,  for  the 


si  PREFACE. 

fame  or  fortune  of  having  stood  on  every  pinnacle  of 
the  silver  temple,  and  beheld  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
from  it.  Love  of  excitement  is  so  far  from  being  love 
of  beauty,  that  it  ends  always  in  a  joy  in'  its  exact  re- 
verse ;  joy  in  destruction, — as  of  my  poor  roses, — or  in 
actual  details  of  death ;  until,  in  the  literature  of  the 
day,  "nothing  is  too  dreadful,  or  too  trivial,  for  the 
greed  of  the  public."  *  And  in  politics,  apathy,  irrev- 
erence, and  lust  of  luxury  go  hand  in  hand,  until  the  best 
solemnization  which  can  be  conceived  for  the  greatest 
event  in  modern  European  history,  the  crowning  of 
Florence  capital  of  Italy,  is  the  accursed  and  ill-omened 
folly  of  casting  down  her  old  walls,  and  surrounding 
her  with  a  "boulevard;"  and  this  at  the  very  time 
when  every  stone  of  her  ancient  cities  is  more  precious 
to  her  than  the  gems  of  a  Urim  breastplate,  and  when 
every  nerve  of  her  heart  and  brain  should  have  been 
strained  to  redeem  her  guilt  and  fulfil  her  freedom.  It 
is  not  by  making  roads  round  Florence,  but  through 
Calabria,  that  she  should  begin  her  Roman  causeway 
work  again ;  and  her  fate  points  her  march,  not  on 
boulevards  by  Arno,  but  waist-deep  in  the  lagoons  at 
Venice.  Not  yet,  indeed,  but  five  years  of  patience  and 
*  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  August  15th,  article  on  the  Forward  murders. 


PEEFACE.  xli 

discipline  of  her  youth  would  accomplish  her  power, 
and  sweep  the  martello  towers  from  the  cliffs  of  Ver- 
ona, and  the  ramparts  from  the  marsh  of  Mestre.  But 
she  will  not  teach  her  youth  that  discipline  on  boule- 
vards. 

Strange,  that  while  we  both,  French  and  English,  can 
give  lessons  in  war,  we  only  corrupt  other  nations  when 
they  imitate  either  our  pleasures  or  our  industries. 
We  English,  had  we  loved  Switzerland  indeed,  should 
have  striven  to  elevate,  but  not  to  disturb,  the  simpli- 
city of  her  people,  by  teaching  them  the  sacredness  of 
their  fields  and  waters,  the  honour  of  their  pastoral  and 
burgher  life,  and  the  fellowship  in  glory  of  the  grey 
turreted  walls  round  their  ancient  cities,  with  their  cot- 
tages in  their  fair  groups  by  the  forest  and  lake.  Beau- 
tiful, indeed,  upon  the  mountains,  had  been  the  feet  of 
any  who  had  spoken  peace  to  their  children ; — who  had 
taught  those  princely  peasants  to  remember  their  line- 
age, and  their  league  with  the  rocks  of  the  field ;  that 
so  they  might  keep  their  mountain  waters  pure,  and 
their  mountain  paths  peaceful,  and  their  traditions  of 
domestic  life  holy.  We  have  taught  them  (incapable 
by  circumstances  and  position  of  ever  becoming  a  great 
commercial  nation)  all  the  foulness  of  the  modern  lust 


xlii  PREFACE. 

of  wealth,  without  its  practical  intelligences ;  and  we 
have  developed  exactly  the  weakness  of  their  tempera- 
ment by  which  they  are  liable  to  meanest  ruin.  Of  the 
ancient  architecture  and  most  expressive  beauty  of 
their  country  there  is  now  little  vestige  left ;  and  it  is 
one  of  the  few  reasons  which  console  me  for  the  ad- 
vance of  life,  that  I  am  old  enough  to  remember  the 
time  when  the  sweet  waves  of  the  Reuss  and  Limmat 
(now  foul  with  the  refuse  of  manufacture)  were  as  crys- 
talline as  the  heaven  above  them,  when  her  pictured 
bridges  and  embattled  towers  ran  unbroken  round  Lu- 
cerne ;  when  the  Rhone  flowed  in  deep-green,  softly 
dividing  currents  round  the  wooded  ramparts  of  Gen- 
eva; and  when  from  the  marble  roof  of  the  western 
vault  of  Milan,  I  could  watch  the  Rose  of  Italy  flush  in 
the  first  morning  light,  before  a  human  foot  had  sullied 
its  summit,  or  the  reddening  dawn  on  its  rocks  taken 
shadow  of  sadness  from  the  crimson  which  long  ago 
stained  the  ripples  of  Otterburn. 


ESAME    AND     LILIES 

THREE  LECTURES. 


SESAME  AND  LILIES. 


LECTUEE  I.— SESAME. 

OF  kings'  treasuries. 

"You  shall  each  have  a  cake  of  sesame, — and  ten  pound." 

— Lucian  :  The  Fisherman. 

1.  My  first  duty  this  evening  is  to  ask  your  pardon  for 
the  ambiguity  of  title  under  which  the  subject  of  lect- 
ure has  been  announced  :  for  indeed  I  am  not  going 
to  talk  of  kings,  known  as  regnant,  nor  of  treasuries, 
understood  to  contain  wealth  ;  but  of  quite  another 
order  of  royalty,  and  another  material  of  riches,  than 
those  usually  acknowledged.  I  had  even  intended  to 
ask  your  attention  for  a  little  while  on  trust,  and  (as 
sometimes  one  contrives,  in  taking  a  friend  to  see  a 
favourite  piece  of  scenery)  to  hide  what  I  wanted  most 
to  show,  with  such  imperfect  cunning  as  I  might,  until 
we  unexpectedly  reached  the  best  point  of  view  by 
winding  paths.     But — and  as  also  I  have  heard  it  said, 


6  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

by  men  practised  in  public  address,  that  hearers  are 
never  so  much  fatigued  as  by  the  endeavour  to  follow 
a  speaker  who  gives  them  no  clue  to  his  purpose, — I 
will  take  the  slight  mask  off  at  once,  and  tell  you 
plainly  that  I  want  to  speak  to  you  about  the  treasures 
hidden  in  books;  and  about  the  way  we  find  them, 
and  the  way  we  lose  them.  A  grave  subject,  you  will 
say ;  and  a  wide  one  !  Yes  ;  so  wide  that  I  shall  make 
no  effort  to  touch  the  compass  of  it.  I  will  try  only  to 
bring  before  you  a  few  simple  thoughts  about  read- 
ing, which  press  themselves  upon  me  every  day  more 
deeply,  as  I  watch  the  course  of  the  public  mind  with 
respect  to  our  daily  enlarging  means  of  education ;  and 
the  answeringly  wider  spreading  on  the  levels,  of  the 
irrigation  of  literature. 

2.  It  happens  that  I  have  practically  some  connexion 
with  schools  for  different  classes  of  youth ;  and  I  re- 
ceive many  letters  from  parents  respecting  the  educa- 
tion of  their  children.  In  the  mass  of  these  letters  I 
am  always  struck  by  the  precedence  which  the  idea  of 
a  "  position  in  life  "  takes  above  all  other  thoughts  in 
the  parents' — more  especially  in  the  mothers' — minds. 
"  The  education  befitting  such  and   such  a  station  in 


OF  KINGS     TREASURIES.  7 

life  " — this  is  tlie  phrase,  this  the  object,  always.  They 
never  seek,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  an  education  good 
in  itself ;  even  the  conception  of  abstract  rightness  in 
training  rarely  seems  reached  by  the  writers.  But,  an 
education  "  which  shall  keep  a  good  coat  on  my  son's 
back  ; — which  shall  enable  him  to  ring  with  confidence 
the  visitors'  bell  at  doubled-belled  doors ;  which  shall 
result  ultimately  in  establishment  of  a  doubled-belled 
door  to  his  own  house  ; — in  a  word,  which  shall  lead 
to  "  advancement  in  life ;  " — this  we  pray  for  on  bent 
knees— and  this  is  all  we  pray  for."  It  never  seems  to 
occur  to  the  parents  that  there  may  be  an  education 
which,  in  itself,  is  advancement  in  Life  ;— that  any 
other  than  that  may  perhaps  be  advancement  in  Death  ; 
and  that  this  essential  education  might  be  more  ea- 
sily got,  or  given,  than  they  fancy,  if  they  set  about 
it  in  the  right  way ;  while  it  is  for  no  price,  and 
by  no  favour,  to  be  got,  if  they  set  about  it  in  the 
wrong. 

3.  Indeed,  among  the  ideas  most  prevalent  and  effec- 
tive in  the  mind  of  this  busiest  of  countries,  I  suppose  the 
first — at  least  that  which  is  confessed  with  the  greatest 
frankness,  and  put  forward  as  the  fittest  stimulus  to 


8  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

youthful  exertion — is  this  of  "  Advancement  in  life.'"' 
May  I  ask  you  to  consider  with  me  what  this  idea 
practically  includes,  and  what  it  should  include. 

Practically,  then,  at  present,  "  advancement  in  life  " 
means,  becoming  conspicuous  in  life  ; — obtaining  a  po- 
sition which  shall  be  acknowledged  by  others  to  be 
respectable  or  honourable.  We  do  not  understand  by 
this  advancement,  in  general,  the  mere  making  of 
money,  but  the  being  known  to  have  made  it ;  not  the 
accomplishment  of  any  great  aim,  but  the  being  seen  to 
have  accomplished  it.  In  a  word,  we  mean  the  grati- 
fication of  our  thirst  for  applause.  That  thirst,  if  the 
last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  is  also  the  first  infirmity 
of  weak  ones ;  and,  on  the  whole,  the  strongest  impul- 
sive influence  of  average  humanity  :  the  greatest  efforts 
of  the  race  have  always  been  traceable  to  the  love  of 
praise,  as  its  greatest  catastrophes  to  the  love  of 
pleasure. 

4.  I  am  not  about  to  attack  or  defend  this  impulse.  I 
want  you  only  to  feel  how  it  lies  at  the  root  of  effort ; 
especially  of  all  modern  effort.  It  is  the  gratification  of 
vanity  which  is,  with  us,  the  stimulus  of  toil,  and  balm 
of  repose  ;  so  closely  does  it  touch  the  very  springs  of 


OF  KDsGS    TREASURIES.  9 

life  that  the  wounding  of  our  vanity  is  always  spoken 
of  (and  truly)  as  in  its  measure  mortal;  we  call  it  "  mor- 
tification," using  the  same  expression  which  we  should 
apply  to  a  gangrenous  and  incurable  bodily  hurt.  And 
although  few  of  us  may  be  physicians  enough  to  recog- 
nize the  various  effect  of  this  passion  upon  health  and 
energy,  I  believe  most  honest  men  know,  and  would  at 
once  acknowledge,  its  leading  power  with  them  as  a 
motive.  The  seaman  does  not  commonly  desire  to  be 
made  captain  only  because  he  knows  he  can  manage 
the  ship  better  than  any  other  sailor  on  board.  He 
wants  to  be  made  captain  that  he  may  be  called  captain. 
The  clergyman  does  not  usually  want  to  be  made  a 
bishop  only  because  he  believes  no  other  hand  can,  as 
firmly  as  his,  direct  the  diocese  through  its  difficulties. 
He  wants  to  be  made  bishop  primarily  that  he  may  be 
called  "  My  Lord."  And  a  prince  does  not  usually  de- 
sire to  enlarge,  or  a  subject  to  gain,  a  kingdom,  because 
he  believes  that  no  one  else  can  as  well  serve  the  State, 
upon  its  throne  ;  but,  briefly,  because  he  wishes  to  be 
addressed  as  "  Your  Majesty,"  by  as  many  lips  as  may 
be  brought  to  such  utterance. 

5.  This,  then,  being  the  main  idea  of  "  advancement 
in  life,"  the  force  of  it  applies,  for  all  of  us,  according  to 


10  SESAME  AND  LILD3S. 

our  station,  particularly  to  that  secondary  result  of 
such  advancement  which  we  call  "getting  into  good 
society."  We  want  to  get  into  good  society  not  that 
we  may  have  it,  but  that  we  may  be  seen  in  it ;  and 
our  notion  of  its  goodness  depends  primarily  on  its 
conspicuousness. 

Will  you  pardon  me  if  I  pause  for  a  moment  to  put 
what  I  fear  you  may  think  an  impertinent  question  ?  I 
never  can  go  on  with  an  address  unless  I  feel,  or  know, 
that  my  audience  are  either  with  me  or  against  me  :  I 
do  not  much  care  which,  in  beginning ;  but  I  must 
know  where  they  are  ;  and  I  would  fain  find  out,  at  this 
instant,  whether  you  think  I  am  putting  the  motives  of 
popular  action  too  low.  I  am  resolved,  to-night,  to  state 
them  low  enough  to  be  admitted  as  probable ;  for 
whenever,  in  my  writings  on  Political  Economy,  I  as- 
sume that  a  little  honesty,  or  generosity, — or  what  used 
to  be  called  "  virtue  " — may  be  calculated  upon  as  a 
human  motive  of  action,  people  always  answer  me,  say- 
ing, "  You  must  not  calculate  on  that :  that  is  not  in 
human  nature  :  you  must  not  assume  anything  to  be 
common  to  men  but  acquisitiveness  and  jealousy ;  no 
other  feeling  ever  has  influence  on  them,  except  acci- 
dentally, and  in  matters  out  of  the  way  of  business."    I 


or  kings'  treasuries.  11 

begin,  accordingly,  to-night  low  in  the  scale  of  motives  ; 
but  I  must  know  if  you  think  me  right  in  doing  so. 
Therefore,  let  me  ask  those  who  admit  the  love  of 
praise  to  be  usually  the  strongest  motive  in  men's 
minds  in  seeking  advancement,  and  the  honest  desire  of 
doing  any  kind  of  duty  to  be  an  entirely  secondary  one, 
to  hold  up  their  hands.  (About  a  dozen  of  hands  held  up — 
the  audience,  partly,  not  being  sure  the  lecturer  is  serious,  and, 
partly,  shy  of  expressing  opinion.)  I  am  quite  serious — I 
really  do  want  to  know  what  you  think ;  however,  I  can 
judge  by  putting  the  reverse  question.  "Will  those  who 
think  that  duty  is  generally  the  first,  and  love  of  praise 
the  second,  motive,  hold  up  their  hands  ?  ( One  hand 
reported  to  have  been  held  up,  behind  the  lecturer.)  Very 
good  ;  I  see  you  are  with  me,  and  that  you  think  I  have 
not  begun  too  near  the  ground.  Now,  without  teasing 
you  by  putting  farther  question,  I  venture  to  assume 
that  you  will  admit  duty  as  at  least  a  secondary  or  tertiary 
motive.  You  think  that  the  desire  of  doing  something 
useful,  or  obtaining  some  real  good,  is  indeed  an  exist- 
ent collateral  idea,  though  a  secondary  one,  in  most 
men's  desire  of  advancement.  You  will  grant  that 
moderately  honest  men  desire  place  and  office,  at  least 
in  some   measure,  for   the  sake  of  beneficent  power; 


12  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

and  would  wish  to  associate  rather  with  sensible  and 
well-informed  persons  than  with  fools  and  ignorant 
persons,  whether  they  are  seen  in  the  company  of  tho 
sensible  ones  or  not.  And  finally,  without  being  troubled 
by  repetition  of  any  common  truisms  about  the  precious- 
ness  of  friends,  and  the  influence  of  companions,  you 
will  admit,  doubtless,  that  according  to  the  sincerity  of 
our  desire  that  our  friends  may  be  true,  and  our  com- 
panions wise, — and  in  proportion  to  the  earnestness 
and  discretion  with  which  we  choose  both,  will  be  the 
general  chances  of  our  happiness  and  usefulness. 

6.  But,  granting  that  we  had  both  the  will  and  the 
sense  to  choose  our  friends  well,  how  few  of  us  have  the 
power  !  or,  at  least,  how  limited,  for  most,  is  the  sphere 
of  choice !  Nearly  all  our  associations  are  determined 
by  chance,  or  necessity;  and  restricted  within  a  narrow 
circle.  We  cannot  know  whom  we  would  ;  and  those 
whom  we  know,  we  cannot  have  at  our  side  when  we 
most  need  them.  All  the  higher  circles  of  human  intel- 
ligence are,  to  those  beneath,  only  momentarily  and 
partially  open.  We  may,  by  good  fortune,  obtain  a 
glimpse  of  a  great  poet,  and  hear  the  sound  of  his  voice ; 
or  put  a  question  to  a  man  of  science,  and  be  answered 
good-humouredly.      We  may  intrude  ten  minutes'  talk 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  13 

on  a  cabinet  minister,  answered  probably  with  words 
worse  than  silence,  being  deceptive  ;  or  snatch,  once  or 
twice  in  our  lives,  the  privilege  of  throwing  a  bouquet 
in  the  path  of  a  Princess,  or  arresting  the  kind  glance 
of  a  Queen.  And  yet  these  momentary  chances  we 
covet ;  and  spend  our  years,  and  passions,  and  powers 
in  pursuit  of  little  more  than  these  ;  while,  meantime, 
there  is  a  society  continually  open  to  us,  of  people  who 
will  talk  to  us  as  long  as  we  like,  whatever  our  rank  or 
occupation ; — talk  to  us  in  the  best  words  they  can 
choose,  and  of  the  things  nearest  their  hearts.  And  this 
society,  because  it  is  so  numerous  and  so  gentle,  and 
can  be  kept  waiting  round  us  all  day  long, — kings  and 
statesmen  lingering  patiently,  not  to  grant  audience, 
but  to  gain  it ! — in  those  plainly  furnished  and  narrow 
anterooms,  our  bookcase  shelves, — we  make  no  account 
of  that  company, — perhaps  never  listen  to  a  word  they 
would  say,  all  day  long! 

7.  You  may  tell  me,  perhaps,  or  think  within  your- 
selves, that  the  apathy  with  which  we  regard  this  com- 
pany of  the  noble,  who  are  praying  us  to  listen  to  them ; 
and  the  passion  with  which  we  pursue  the  company,  prob- 
ably of  the  ignoble,  who  despise  us,  or  who  have  nothing 
to  teach  us,  are  grounded  in  this, — that  we  can  see  the 


14  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

faces  of  the  living  men,  and  it  is  themselves,  and  not 
their  sayings,  with  which  we  desire  to  become  familiar. 
But  it  is  not  so.  Suppose  you  never  were  to  see  their 
faces ; — suppose  you  could  be  put  behind  a  screen  in 
the  statesman's  cabinet,  or  the  prince's  chamber,  would 
you  not  be  glad  to  listen  to  their  words,  though  you 
were  forbidden  to  advance  beyond  the  screen  ?  And 
when  the  screen  is  only  a  little  less,  folded  in  two  in- 
stead of  four,  and  you  can  be  hidden  behind  the  cover 
of  the  two  boards  that  bind  a  book,  and  listen  all  day 
long,  not  to  the  casual  talk,  but  to  the  studied,  deter- 
mined, chosen  addresses  of  the  wisest  of  men ; — this 
station  of  audience,  and  honourable  privy  council,  you 
despise ! 

8.  But  perhaps  you  will  say  that  it  is  because  the  liv- 
ing people  talk  of  things  that  are  passing,  and  are  of  im- 
mediate interest  to  you,  that  you  desire  to  hear  them. 
Nay ;  that  cannot  be  so,  for  the  living  people  will  them- 
selves tell  you  about  passing  matters,  much  better  in 
their  writings  than  in  their  careless  talk.  But  I  admit 
that  this  motive  does  influence  you,  so  far  as  you  prefer 
those  rapid  and  ephemeral  writings  to  slow  and  endur- 
ing writings — books,  properly  so  called.  For  all  books 
are  divisible  into  two  classes,  the  books  of  the  hour, 


OP  KINGS*  TREASURIES.  15 

and  the  boohs  of  all  time.  Mark  this  distinction — it  is 
not  one  of  quality  only.  It  is  not  merely  the  bad  book 
that  does  not  last,  and  the  good  one  that  does.  It  is  a 
distinction  of  species.  There  are  good  books  for  the 
hour,  and  good  ones  for  all  time ;  bad  books  for  the  hour, 
and  bad  ones  for  all  time.  I  must  define  the  two  kinds 
before  I  go  farther. 

9.  The  good  book  of  the  hour,  then, — I  do  not  speak 
of  the  bad  ones — is  simply  the  useful  or  pleasant  talk  of 
some  person  whom  you  cannot  otherwise  converse  with, 
printed  for  you.  Yery  useful  often,  telling  you  what 
you  need  to  know ;  very  pleasant  often,  as  a  sensible 
friend's  present  talk  would  be.  These  bright  accounts 
of  travels ;  good-humoured  and  witty  discussions  of 
question ;  lively  or  pathetic  story-telling  in  the  form  of 
novel ;  firm  fact-telling,  by  the  real  agents  concerned  in 
the  events  of  passing  history  ; — all  these  books  of  the 
hour,  multiplying  among  us  as  education  becomes 
more  general,  are  a  peculiar  possession  of  the  pres- 
ent age  ;  we  ought  to  be  entirely  thankful  for  them, 
and  entirely  ashamed  of  ourselves  if  we  make  no 
good  use  of  them.  But  we  make  the  worst  possi- 
ble use  if  we  allow  them  to  usurp  the  place  of  true 
books :  for,  strictly  speaking,  they  are  not  books  at  all, 


16  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

but  merely  letters  or  newspapers  ia  good  print.  Our 
friend's  letter  may  be  delightful,  or  necessary,  to-day : 
■whether  worth  keeping  or  not,  is  to  be  considered. 
The  newspaper  may  be  entirely  proper  at  breakfast 
time,  but  assuredly  it  is  not  reading  for  all  day.  So, 
though  bound  up  in  a  volume,  the  long  letter  which 
gives  you  so  pleasant  an  account  of  the  inns,  and  roads, 
and  weather  last  year  at  such  a  place,  or  which  tells 
you  that  amusing  story,  or  gives  you  the  real  circum- 
stances of  such  and  such  events,  however  valuable  for 
occasional  reference,  may  not  be,  in  the  real  sense  of 
the  word,  a  "  book  "  at  all,  nor,  in  the  real  sense,  to  be 
"  read."  A  book  is  essentially  not  a  talked  thing,  but 
a  written  thing  ;  and  written,  not  with  the  view  of  mere 
communication,  but  of  permanence.  The  book  of  talk 
is  printed  only  because  its  author  cannot  speak  to 
thousands  of  people  at  once  ;  if  he  could,  he  would — 
the  volume  is  mere  multiplication  of  his  voice.  You 
cannot  talk  to  your  friend  in  India ;  if  you  could,  you 
would;  you  write  instead:  that  is  mere  conveyance  of 
voice.  But  a  book  is  written,  not  to  multiply  the  voice 
merely,  not  to  carry  it  merely,  but  to  perpetuate  it.  The 
author  has  something  to  say  which  he  perceives  to  be 
true  and  useful,  or  helpfully  beautiful.  So  far  as  he  knows, 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  17 

no  one  has  yet  said  it ;  so  far  as  he  knows,  no  one  else 
can  say  it.  He  is  bound  to  say  it,  clearly  and  melodiously 
if  he  may ;  clearly,  at  all  events.  In  the  sum  of  his 
life  he  finds  this  to  be  the  thing,  or  group  of  things, 
manifest  to  him ; — this,  the  piece  of  true  knowledge,  or 
sight,  which  his  share  of  sunshine  and  earth  has  per- 
mitted him  to  seize.  He  would  fain  set  it  down  for  ever ; 
engrave  it  on  rock,  if  he  could ;  saying,  "  This  is  the  best 
of  me  ;  for  the  rest,  I  ate,  and  drank,  and  slept,  loved, 
and  hated,  like  another  ;  my  life  was  as  the  vapour,  and 
is  not ;  but  this  I  saw  and  knew :  this,  if  anything  of 
mine,  is  worth  your  memory."  That  is  his  "writing;" 
it  is,  in  his  small  human  way,  and  with  whatever  degree 
of  true  inspiration  is  in  him,  his  inscription,  or  scrip- 
ture.    That  is  a  "  Book." 

10.  Perhaps  you  think  no  books  were  ever  so  written. 

But,  again,  I  ask  you,  do  you  at  all  believe  in  honesty, 
or  at  all  in  kindness  ?  or  do  you  think  there  is  never  any 
honesty  or  benevolence  in  wise  people?  None  of  us,  I 
hope,  are  so  unhappy  as  to  think  that.  Well,  whatever 
bit  of  a  wise  man's  work  is  honestly  and  benevolently 
done,  that  bit  is  his  book,  or  his  piece  of  art.*     It  is 

*  Note  this  sentence  carefully,  and  compare  the  Queen  of  the  Air, 
§106. 


18  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

mixed  always  with  evil  fragments— ill-clone,  redundant, 
affected  work.  But  if  you  read  rightly,  you  will  easily 
discover  the  true  bits,  and  those  are  the  book. 

11.  Now  books  of  this  kind  have  been  written  in  all  ages 
by  their  greatest  men : — by  great  readers,  great  states- 
men, and  great  thinkers.  These  are  all  at  your  choice  ; 
and  Life  is  short.  You  have  heard  as  much  before ; — 
yet  have  you  measured  and  mapped  out  this  short  life 
and  its  possibilities  ?  Do  you  know,  if  you  read  this, 
that  you  cannot  read  that — that  what  you  lose  to-day 
you  cannot  gain  to-morrow  ?  Will  you  go  and  gossip 
with  your  housemaid,  or  your  stable-boy,  when  you  may 
talk  with  queens  and  kings ;  or  flatter  yourselves  that 
it  is  with  any  worthy  consciousness  of  your  own  claims 
to  respect  that  you  jostle  with  the  hungry  and  common 
crowd  for  entree  here,  and  audience  there,  when  all  the 
while  this  eternal  court  is  open  to  you,  with  its  society, 
wide  as  the  world,  multitudinous  as  its  days,  the  chosen, 
and  the  mighty,  of  every  place  and  time  ?  Into  that  you 
may  enter  always  ;  in  that  you  may  take  fellowship  and 
rank  according  to  your  wish ;  from  that,  once  entered 
into  it,  you  can  never  be  outcast  but  by  your  own  fault ; 
by  your  aristocracy  of  companionship  there,  your  own 
inherent  aristocracy  will  be  assuredly  tested,  and  the 


OF  kings'  teeasueies.  19 

motives  with  which  you  strive  to  take  high  place  in  the 
society  of  the  living,  measured,  as  to  all  the  truth  and 
sincerity  that  are  in  them,  by  the  place  you  desire  to 
take  in  this  company  of  the  Dead. 

12.  "  The  place  you  desire,"  and  the  place  you  fit  your- 
self  for,  I  must  also  say  ;  because,  observe,  this  court  of 
the  past  differs  from  all  living  aristocracy  in  this : — it  is 
open  to  labour  and  to  merit,  but  to  nothing  else.  No 
wealth  will  bribe,  no  name  overawe,  no  artifice  deceive, 
the  guardian  of  those  Elysian  gates.  In  the  deep  sense, 
no  vile  or  vulgar  person  ever  enters  there.  At  the  por- 
tieres of  that  silent  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  there  is 
but  brief  question,  Do  you  deserve  to  enter?  Pass. 
Do  you  ask  to  be  the  companion  of  nobles  ?  Make 
yourself  noble,  and  you  shall  be.  Do  you  long  for  the 
conversation  of  the  wise  ?  Learn  to  understand  it,  and 
you  shall  hear  it.  But  on  other  terms  ? — no.  If  you 
will  not  rise  to  us,  we  cannot  stoop  to  you.  The  living 
lord  may  assume  courtesy,  the  living  philosopher  ex- 
plain his  thought  to  you  with  considerate  pain  ;  but 
here  we  neither  feign  nor  interpret ;  you  must  rise  to 
the  level  of  our  thoughts  if  you  would  be  gladdened  by 
them,  and  share  our  feelings,  if  you  would  recognize 
our  presence." 


20  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

13.  This,  then,  is  what  you  have  to  do,  and  I  admit  that 
it  is  much.  You  must,  in  a  word,  love  these  people,  if 
you  are  to  be  among  them.  No  ambition  is  of  any  use. 
They  scorn  your  ambition.  You  must  love  them,  and 
show  your  love  in  these  two  following  ways. 

1. — First,  by  a  true  desire  to  be  taught  by  them,  and 
to  enter  into  their  thoughts.  To  enter  into  theirs,  ob- 
serve ;  not  to  find  your  own  expressed  by  them.  If  the 
person  who  wrote  the  book  is  not  wiser  than  you,  you 
need  not  read  it ;  if  he  be,  he  will  think  differently  from 
you  in  many  respects. 

Very  ready  we  are  to  say  of  a  book,  "  How  good  this 
is — that's  exactly  what  I  think !  "  But  the  right  feeling 
is,  "  How  strange  that  is !  I  never  thought  of  that  be- 
fore, and  yet  I  see  it  is  true ;  or  if  I  do  not  now,  I  hope 
I  shall,  some  day."  But  whether  thus  submissively  or 
not,  at  least  be  sure  that  you  go  to  the  author  to  get  at 
his  meaning,  not  to  find  yours.  Judge  it  afterwards,  if 
you  think  yourself  qualified  to  do  so ;  but  ascertain  it  first. 
And  be  sure  also,  if  the  author  is  worth  anything,  that 
you  will  not  get  at  his  meaning  all  at  once  ; — nay,  that 
at  his  whole  meaning  you  will  not  for  a  long  time  arrive 
in  any  wise.  Not  that  he  does  not  say  what  he  means, 
and  in  strong  words  too  ;  but  he  cannot  say  it  all ;  and 


0E  kings'  treasueies.  21 

•what  is  more  strange,  icill  not,  but  in  a  hidden  way  and 
in  parables,  in  order  that  he  may  be  sure  you  want 
it.  I  cannot  quite  see  the  reason  of  this,  nor  analyse 
that  cruel  reticence  in  the  breasts  of  wise  men  which 
makes  them  always  hide  their  deeper  thought.  They 
do  not  give  it  to  you  by  way  of  help,  but  of  reward ;  and 
will  make  themselves  sure  that  you  deserve  it  before 
they  allow  you  to  reach  it.  But  it  is  the  same  with 
the  physical  type  of  wisdom,  gold.  There  seems,  to 
you  and  me,  no  reason  why  the  electric  forces  of  the 
earth  should  not  carry  whatever  there  is  of  gold  within 
it  at  once  to  the  mountain  tops,  so  that  kings  and  peo- 
ple might  know  that  all  the  gold  they  could  get  was 
there  ;  and  without  any  trouble  of  digging,  or  anxiety, 
or  chance,  or  waste  of  time,  cut  it  away,  and  coin  as 
much  as  they  needed.  But  Nature  does  not  manage  it 
so.  She  puts  it  in  little  fissures  in  the  earth,  nobody 
knows  where  :  you  may  dig  long  and  find  none ;  you 
must  dig  painfully  to  find  any. 

14.  And  it  is  just  the  same  with  men's  best  wisdom. 
When  you  come  to  a  good  book,  you  must  ask  yourself, 
"  Am  I  inclined  to  work  as  an  Australian  miner  would  ? 
Are  my  pickaxes  and  shovels  in  good  order,  and  am  I 
in  good  trim  myself,  my  sleeves  well  up  to  the  elbow, 


22  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

and  my  breath  good,  and  my  temper?"  And,  keeping 
the  figure  a  little  longer,  even  at  cost  of  tiresomeness,  for 
it  is  a  thoroughly  useful  one,  the  metal  you  are  in  search 
of  being  the  author's  mind  or  meaning,  his  words  are  as 
the  rock  which  you  have  to  crush  and  smelt  in  order 
to  get  at  it.  And  your  pickaxes  are  your  own  care, 
wit,  and  learning ;  your  smelting-furnace  is  your  own 
thoughtful  soul.  Do  not  hope  to  get  at  any  good  au- 
thor's meaning  without  those  tools  and  that  fire ;  often 
you  will  need  sharpest,  finest  chiselling,  and  patientest 
fusing,  before  you  can  gather  one  grain  of  the  metal. 

15.  And,  therefore,  first  of  all,  I  tell  you,  earnestly  and 
authoritatively,  (I  know  I  am  right  in  this,)  you  must  get 
into  the  habit  of  looking  intensely  at  words,  and  assur- 
ing yourself  of  their  meaning,  syllable  by  syllable — nay 
letter  by  letter.  For  though  it  is  only  by  reason  of  the 
opposition  of  letters  in  the  function  of  signs,  to  sounds 
in  the  function  of  signs,  that  the  study  of  books  is  called 
"literature,"  and  that  a  man  versed  in  it  is  called,  by 
the  consent  of  nations,  a  man  of  letters  instead  of  a 
man  of  books,  or  of  words,  you  may  yet  connect  with 
that  accidental  nomenclature  this  real  fact ; — that  you 
might  read  all  the  books  in  the  British  Museum  (if  you 
could  live  long  enough),  and  remain  an  utterly  "  illiter- 


or  kings'  tkeasueees.  23 

ate,"  uneducated  person ;  but  that  if  you  read  ten  pages 
of  a  good  book,  letter  by  letter, — that  is  to  say,  with 
real  accuracy, — you  are  for  evermore  in  some  measure 
an  educated  person.  The  entire  difference  between 
education  and  non-education  (as  regards  the  merely  in- 
tellectual part  of  it),  consists  in  this  accuracy.  A  well- 
educated  gentleman  may  not  know  many  languages, — 
may  not  be  able  to  speak  any  but  his  own, — may  have 
read  very  few  books.  But  whatever  language  he  knows, 
he  knows  precisely ;  whatever  word  he  pronounces,  he 
pronounces  rightly;  above  all,  he  is  learned  in  the 
'peerage  of  words ;  knows  the  words  of  true  descent  and 
ancient  blood,  at  a  glance,  from  words  of  modern 
canaille ;  remembers  all  their  ancestry,  their  intermar- 
riages, distant  relationships,  and  the  extent  to  which 
they  were  admitted,  and  offices  they  held,  among  the 
national  noblesse  of  words  at  any  time,  and  in  any  coun- 
try. But  an  uneducated  person  may  know,  by  mem- 
ory, many  languages,  and  talk  them  all,  and  yet  truly 
know  not  a  word  of  any, — not  a  word  even  of  his  own.  An 
ordinarily  clever  and  sensible  seaman  will  be  able  to 
make  his  way  ashore  at  most  ports ;  yet  he  has  only  to 
gpeak  a  sentence  of  any  language  to  be  known  for  an  illit- 
erate person :  so  also  the  accent,  or  turn  of  expression  of 


24  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

a  single  sentence,  will  at  once  mark  a  scholar.  And  this 
is  so  strongly  felt,  so  conclusively  admitted  by  educated 
persons,  that  a  false  accent  or  a  mistaken  syllable  is 
enough,  in  the  parliament  of  any  civilized  nation,  to 
assign  to  a  man  a  certain  degree  of  inferior  standing  for 
ever. 

16.  And  this  is  right ;  but  it  is  a  pity  that  the  accu- 
racy insisted  on  is  not  greater,  and  required  to  a  seri- 
ous purpose.  It  is  right  that  a  false  Latin  quantity 
should  excite  a  smile  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  but 
it  is  wrong  that  a  false  English  meaning  should  not  ex- 
cite a  frown  there.  Let  the  accent  of  words  be  watched ; 
and  closely :  let  their  meaning  be  watched  more  close- 
ly still,  and  fewer  will  do  the  work.  A  few  words 
well  chosen  and  distinguished,  will  do  work  that  a 
thousand  cannot,  when  every  one  is  acting,  equivocally, 
in  the  function  of  another.  Yes ;  and  words,  if  they  are 
not  watched,  will  do  deadly  work  sometimes.  There 
are  masked  words  droning  and  skulking  about  us  in 
Europe  just  now,— (there  never  were  so  many,  owing  to 
the  spread  of  a  shallow,  blotching,  blundering,  infec- 
tious "  information,"  or  rather  deformation,  everywhere, 
and  to  the  teaching  of  catechisms  and  phrases  at  schools 
instead  of  human  meanings)— there  are  masked  words 


OF  kings'  tkeasurees.  25 

abroad,  I  say,  which  nobody  understands,  but  which 
everybody  uses,  and  most  people  will  also  fight  for,  live 
for,  or  even  die  for,  fancying  they  mean  this  or'  that,  or 
the  other,  of  things  dear  to  them  :  for  such  words  wear 
chamseleon  cloaks — "groundlion"  cloaks,  of  the  colour 
of  the  ground  of  any  man's  fancy  :  on  that  ground  they 
lie  in  wait,  and  rend  him  with  a  spring  from  it.  Thero 
never  were  creatures  of  prey  so  mischievous,  never  dip- 
lomatists so  cunning,  never  poisoners  so  deadly,  as 
these  masked  words ;  they  are  the  unjust  stewards  of 
all  men's  ideas  :  whatever  fancy  or  favourite  instinct  a 
man  most  cherishes,  he  gives  to  his  favourite  masked 
word  to  take  care  of  for  him ;  the  word  at  last  comes 
to  have  an  infinite  power  over  him, — you  cannot  get  at 
him  but  by  its  ministry. 

17.  And  in  languages  so  mongrel  in  breed  as  the  Eng- 
lish, there  is  a  fatal  power  of  equivocation  put  into 
men's  hands,  almost  whether  they  will  or  no,  in  being 
able  to  use  Greek  or  Latin  words  for  an  idea  when 
they  want  it  to  be  awful ;  and  Saxon  or  otherwise 
common  words  when  they  want  it  to  be  vulgar.  "What 
a  singular  and  salutary  effect,  for  instance,  would 
be  produced  on  the  minds  of  people  who  are  in  the 
habit  of  taking  the  Form  of  the  "  "Word "  they  live 


26  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

by,  for  the  Power  of  which  that  Word  tells  them,  if 
we  always  either  retained,  or  refused,  the  Greek  form 
"biblos,"  or  "biblion,"  as  the  right  expression  for  "book" 
— instead  of  employing  it  only  in  the  one  instance 
in  which  we  wish  to  give  dignity  to  the  idea,  and  trans- 
lating it  into  English  everywhere  else.  How  whole- 
some it  would  be  for  many  simple  persons,  if,  in  such 
places  (for  instance)  as  Acts  xix.  19,  we  retained  the 
Greek  expression,  instead  of  translating  it,  and  they  had 
to  read  — "  Many  of  them  also  which  used  curious  arts, 
brought  their  bibles  together,  and  burnt  them  before 
all  men ;  and  they  counted  the  price  of  them,  and  found 
it  fifty  thousand  pieces  of  silver  !  "  Or  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  translated  where  we  retain  it,  and  always 
spoke  of  "  The  Holy  Book,"  instead  of  "  Holy  Bible," 
it  might  come  into  more  heads  than  it  does  at  present, 
that  the  Word  of  God,  by  which  the  heavens  were,  of 
old,  and  by  which  they  are  now  kept  in  store,*  cannot 
be  made  a  present  of  to  anybody  in  morocco  binding  ; 
nor  sown  on  any  wayside  by  help  either  of  steam  plough 
or  steam  press ;  but  is  nevertheless  being  offered  to  as 
daily,  and  by  us  with  contumely  refused ;  and  sown  in 
us  daily,  and  by  us,  as  instantly  as  may  be,  choked. 
*  2  Peter,  iii.  5-7. 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  27 

18.  So,  again,  consider  what  effect  has  been  produced 
on  the  English  vulgar  mind  by  the  use  of  the  sonorous 
Latin  form  "  damno,"  in  translating  the  Greek  Kara- 
upivoo,  when  people  charitably  wish  to  make  it  forcible  ; 
and  the  substitution  of  the  temperate  "condemn"  for 
it,  when  they  choose  to  keep  it  gentle ;  and  what  not- 
able sermons  have  been  preached  by  illiterate  clergy- 
men on — "  He  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned ; " 
though  they  would  shrink  with  horror  from  translating 
Heb.  xi.  7,  "  The  saving  of  his  house,  by  which  he 
damned  the  world  ; "  or  John  viii.  10, 11, "  "Woman,  hath 
no  man  damned  thee  ?  She  saith,  No  man,  Lord.  Jesus 
answered  her,  Neither  do  I  damn  thee  ;  go  and  sin  no 
move."  And  divisions  in  the  mind  of  Europe,  which 
have  cost  seas  of  blood  and  in  the  defence  of  which  the 
noblest  souls  of  men  have  been  cast  away  in  frantic  des- 
olation, countless  as  forest  leaves — though,  in  the  heart 
of  them,  founded  on  deeper  causes — have  nevertheless 
been  rendered  practicably  possible,  namely,  by  the  Eu- 
ropean adoption  of  the  Greek  word  for  a  public  meeting, 
"  ecclesia,"  to  give  peculiar  respectability  to  such  meet- 
ings, when  held  for  religious  purposes  ;  and  other  collat- 
eral equivocations,  such  as  the  vulgar  English  one  of 
using  the  word  "  priest "  as  a  contraction  for  "  presbyter." 


28  .   SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

19.  Now,  in  order  to  deal  with  words  rightly,  this  is  the 
habit  you  must  form.  Nearly  every  word  in  your  lan- 
guage has  been  first  a  word  of  some  other  language — of 
Saxon,  German,  French,  Latin,  or  Greek  (not  to  speak 
of  eastern  and  primitive  dialects).  And  many  words 
have  been  all  these ; — that  is  to  say,  have  been  Greek 
first,  Latin  next,  French  or  German  next,  and  English 
last :  undergoing  a  certain  change  of  sense  and  use  on 
the  lips  of  each  nation ;  but  retaining  a  deep  vital 
meaning,  which  all  good  scholars  feel  in  employing  them, 
even  at  this  day.  If  you  do  not  know  the  Greek  alpha- 
bet, learn  it ;  young  or  old — girl  or  boy — whoever  you 
may  be,  if  you  think  of  reading  seriously  (which,  of 
course,  implies  that  you  have  some  leisure  at  command), 
learn  your  Greek  alphabet ;  then  get  good  dictionaries 
of  all  these  languages,  and  whenever  you  are  in  doubt 
about  a  word,  hunt  it  down  patiently.  Read  Max 
Miiller's  lectures  thoroughly,  to  begin  with ;  and,  after 
that,  never  let  a  word  escape  you  that  looks  suspicious. 
It  is  severe  work  ;  but  you  will  find  it,  even  at  first,  in- 
teresting, and  at  last,  endlessly  amusing.  And  the  gen- 
eral gain  to  your  character,  in  power  and  precision,  will 
be  quite  incalculable. 

Mind,  this  does  not  imply  knowing,  or  trying  to  know. 


op  kings'  treasuries.  29 

Greek  or  Latin,  or  French.  It  takes  a  whole  life  to 
learn  any  language  perfectly.  But  you  can  easily  as- 
certain the  meanings  through  which  the  English  word 
has  passed ;  and  those  which  in  a  good  writer's  work  it 
must  still  bear. 

20.  And  now,  merely  for  example's  sake,  I  will,  with 
your  permission,  read  a  few  lines  of  a  true  book  with  you, 
carefully  ;  and  see  what  will  come  out  of  them.  I  will 
take  a  book  perfectly  known  to  you  all.  No  English 
words  are  more  familiar  to  us,  yet  few  perhaps  have 
been  read  with  less  sincerity.  I  will  take  these  few 
following  lines  of  Lycidas  : 

"  Last  came,  and  last  did  go, 
The  pilot  of  the  Galilean  lake  ; 
Two  massy  keys  he  bore  of  metals  twain, 
(The  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain), 
He  shook  his  mitred  locks,  and  stern  bespake, 
'How  "well  could  I  have  spar'd  for  thee,  young  swain, 
Enow  of  such  as  for  their  bellies'  sake 
Creep,  and  intrude,  and  climb  into  the  fold ! 
Of  other  care  they  little  reckoning  make, 
Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast, 
And  shove  away  the  worthy  bidden  guest ; 
Blind  mouths !  that  scarce  themselves  know  how  to  hold 
A  sheep-hook,  or  have  learn'd  aught  else,  the  least 
That  to  the  faithful  herdsman's  art  belongs  ! 


30  SESAME  AND  IJLIES. 

What  recks  it  them  ?    What  need  they  ?    They  are  sped  ; 

And  when  they  list,  their  lean  and  flashy  songs 

Grate  on  their  scrannel  pipes  of  wretched  straw  ; 

The  hungry  sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed, 

But,  swoln  with  wind,  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw, 

Rot  inwardly,  and  foul  contagion  spread  ; 

Besides  what  the  grim  wolf  with  privy  paw 

Daily  devours  apace,  and  nothing  said.'  " 

Let  us  think  over  this  passage,  and  examine  its  words. 

First,  is  it  not  singular  to  find  Milton  assigning  to  St. 
Peter,  not  only  his  full  episcopal  function,  but  the  very 
types  of  it  which  Protestants  usually  refuse  most  pas- 
sionately  ?  His  "  mitred  "  locks !  Milton  was  no  Bishop- 
lover  ;  how  comes  St.  Peter  to  be  "  mitred  ?  "  "  Two 
massy  keys  he  bore."  Is  this,  then,  the  power  of  the  keys 
claimed  by  the  Bishops  of  Borne,  and  is  it  acknowledged 
here  by  Milton  only  in  a  poetical  licence,  for  the  sake 
of  its  picturesqueness,  that  he  may  get  the  gleam  of  the 
golden  keys  to  help  his  effect  ?  Do  not  think  it.  Great 
men  do  not  play  stage  tricks  with  doctrines  of  life  and 
death  :  only  little  men  do  that.  Milton  means  what  he 
says  ;  and  means  it  with  his  might  too — is  going  to  put 
the  whole  strength  of  his  spirit  presently  into  the  say- 
ing of  it.  For  though  not  a  lover  of  false  bishops,  he 
was  a  lover  of  true  ones ;  and  the  Lake-pilot  is  here,  in 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  31 

his  thoughts,  the  type  and  head  of  true  episcopal 
power.  For  Milton  reads  that  text,  "  I  will  give  unto 
thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven"  quite  honestly. 
Puritan  though  he  be,  he  would  not  blot  it  out  of  the 
book  because  there  have  been  bad  bishops;  nay,  in 
order  to  understand  him,  we  must  understand  that  verse 
first ;  it  will  not  do  to  eye  it  askance,  or  whisper  it  under 
our  breath,  as  if  it  were  a  weapon  of  an  adverse  sect. 
It  is  a  solemn,  universal  assertion,  deeply  to  be  kept  in 
mind  by  all  sects.  But  perhaps  we  shall  be  better  able 
to  reason  on  it  if  we  go  on  a  little  farther,  and  come 
back  to  it.  For  clearly  this  marked  insistance  on  the 
power  of  the  true  episcopate  is  to  make  us  feel  more 
weightily  what  is  to  be  charged  against  the  false  claim- 
ants of  episcopate  ;  or  generally,  against  false  claimants 
of  power  and  rank  in  the  body  of  the  clergy ;  they 
who,  "for  their  bellies'  sake,  creep,  and  intrude,  and 
climb  into  the  fold." 

21.  Never  think  Milton  uses  those  three  words  to  fill 
up  his  verse,  as  a  loose  writer  would.  He  needs  all  the 
three  ;  specially  those  three,  and  no  more  than  those — 
"  creep,"  and  intrude,"  and  "  climb  ; "  no  other  words 
would  or  could  serve  the  turn,  and  no  more  could  be 
added.     For  they  exhaustively  comprehend  the  threa 


32  SESAME   AND  LILIES. 

classes,  correspondent  to  the  three  characters,  of  men 
who  dishonestly  seek  ecclesiastical  power.  First,  those 
who  "  creep "  into  the  fold ;  who  do  not  care  for  office, 
nor  name,  but  for  secret  influence,  and  do  all  things 
occultly  and  cunningly,  consenting  to  any  servility  of 
office  or  conduct,  so  only  that  they  may  intimately  dis- 
cern, and  unawares  direct,  the  minds  of  men.  Then 
those  who  "  intrude  "  (thrust,  that  is)  themselves  into 
the  fold,  who  by  natural  insolence  of  heart,  and  stout 
eloquence  of  tongue,  and  fearlessly  perseverant  self- 
assertion,  obtain  hearing  and  authority  with  the  com- 
mon crowd.  Lastly,  those  who  "  climb,"  who  by  labour 
and  learning,  both  stout  and  sound,  but  selfishly  exerted 
in  the  cause  of  their  own  ambition,  gain  high  dignities 
and  authorities,  and  become  "lords  over  the  heritage," 
though  not  "  ensamples  to  the  flock." 
22.  Now  go  on  : — 

"  Of  other  care  they  little  reckoning  make, 
Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast. 
Blind  mouths — " 

I  pause  again,  for  this  is  a  strange  expression ; 
a  broken  metaphor,  one  might  think,  careless  and 
unscholarly. 

Not  so  :  its  very  audacity  and  pithiness  are  intended 


OF  KINGS    TREASURIES.  33 

to  make  us  look  close  at  the  phrase  and  remember  it. 
Those  two  monosyllables  express  the  precisely  accurate 
contraries  of  right  character,  in  the  two  great  offices  of 
the  Church — those  of  bishop  and  pastor. 
A  "  Bishop  "  means  a  "  person  who  sees." 
A  "  Pastor  "  means  a  "  person  who  feeds." 
The  most  unbishoply  character  a  man  can  have  is 
therefore  to  be  Blind. 

The  most  unpastoral  is,  instead  of  feeding,  to  want  to 
be  fed, — to  be  a  Mouth. 

Take  the  two  reverses  together,  and  you  have  "  blind 
mouths."  We  may  advisably  follow  out  this  idea  a 
little.  Nearly  all  the  evils  in  the  Church  have  arisen 
from  bishops  desiring  power  more  than  light.  They 
want  authority,  not  outlook.  Whereas  their  real  office 
is  not  to  rule ;  though  it  may  be  vigorously  to  exhort 
and  rebuke  ;  it  is  the  king's  office  to  rule  ;  the  bishop's 
office  is  to  oversee  the  flock  ;  to  number  it,  sheep  by  sheep ; 
to  be  ready  always  to  give  full  account  of  it.  Now  it  is 
clear  he  cannot  give  account  of  the  souls,  if  he  has  not 
so  much  as  numbered  the  bodies  of  his  flock.  The  first 
thing,  therefore,  that  a  bishop  has  to  do  is  at  least  to 
put  himself  in  a  position  in  which,  at  any  moment,  he 
can  obtain  the  history,  from  childhood,  of  every  living 


34  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

soul  in  liis  diocese,  and  of  its  present  state.  Down  in 
that  back  street,  Bill,  and  Nancy,  knocking  each  other's 
teeth  out ! — Does  the  bishop  know  all  about  it  ?  Has 
he  his  eye  upon  them  ?  Has  he  had  his  eye  upon  them  ? 
Can  he  circumstantially  explain  to  us  how  Bill  got  into 
the  habit  of  beating  Nancy  about  the  head?  If  he  can- 
not, he  is  no  bishop,  though  he  had  a  mitre  as  high  as 
Salisbury  steeple  ;  he  is  no  bishop, — he  has  sought  to 
be  at  the  helm  instead  of  the  masthead  ;  he  has  no  sight 
of  things.  "  Nay,"  you  say,  "  it  is  not  his  duty  to  look 
after  Bill  in  the  back  street."  What !  the  fat  sheep  that 
have  full  fleeces — you  think  it  is  only  those  he  should 
look  after,  while  (go  back  to  your  Milton)  "  the  hungry 
sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed,  besides  what  the  grim 
wolf,  with  privy  paw"  (bishops  knowing  nothing  about 
it)  "  daily  devours  apace,  and  nothing  said  ?  " 

"  But  that's  not  our  idea  of  a  bishop."*  Perhaps  not ; 
but  it  was  St.  Paul's ;  and  it  was  Milton's.  They  may 
be  right,  or  we  may  be  ;  but  we  must  not  think  we  are 
reading  either  one  or  the  other  by  putting  our  meaning 
into  their  words. 

23.  I  go  on. 

"  But,  swollen  with  wind,  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw." 
*  Compare  the  13th  Letter  in  Time  and  Tide. 


OF  kings'  treasuries.      .  35 

This  is  to  meet  the  vulgar  answer  that  "  if  the  poor 
are  not  looked  after  in  their  bodies,  they  are  in  their 
souls  ;  they  have  spiritual  food." 

And  Milton  says,  "They  have  no  such  thing  as 
spiritual  food;  they  are  only  swollen  with  wind."  At 
first  you  may  think  that  is  a  coarse  type,  and  an  obscure 
one.  But  again,  it  is  a  quite  literally  accurate  one. 
Take  up  your  Latin  and  Greek  dictionaries,  and  find 
find  out  the  meaning  of  "  Spirit."  It  is  only  a  contrac- 
tion of  the  Latin  word  "breath,"  and  an  indistinct 
translation  of  the  Greek  word  for  "wind."  The  same 
word  is  used  in  writing,  "  The  wind  bloweth  where  it 
listeth  ;"  and  in  writing,  "  So  is  every  one  that  is  born 
of  the  Spirit ;"  born  of  the  breath,  that  is  ;  for  it  means 
the  breath  of  God,  in  soul  and  body.  We  have  the  true 
sense  of  it  in  our  words  "  inspiration  "  and  "  expire." 
Now,  there  are  two  kinds  of  breath  with  which  the  flock 
may  be  filled ;  God's  breath,  and  man's.  The  breath  of 
God  is  health,  and  life,  and  peace  to  them,  as  the  air  of 
heaven  is  to  the  flocks  on  the  hills  ;  but  man's  breath — 
the  word  which  lie  calls  spiritual, — is  disease  and  con- 
tagion to  them,  as  the  fog  of  the  fen.  They  rot  inwardly 
with  it ;  they  are  puffed  up  by  it,  as  a  dead  body  by  the 
vapours  of  its  own  decomposition.     This  is  literally  true 


36  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

of  all  false  religious  teaching;  the  first  and  last,  and 
fatalest  sign  of  it  is  that  "  puffing  up."  Your  converted 
children,  who  teach  their  parents ;  your  converted  con- 
victs, who  teach  honest  men;  your  converted  dunces, 
who,  having  lived  in  cretinous  stupefaction  half  their 
lives,  suddenly  awakening  to  the  fact  of  there  being  a 
God,  fancy  themselves  therefore  His  peculiar  people 
and  messengers ;  your  sectarians  of  every  species,  small 
and  great,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  of  high  church  or  low, 
in  so  far  as  they  think  themselves  exclusively  in  the 
right  and  others  wrong ;  and  pre-eminently,  in  every 
sect,  those  who  hold  that  men  can  be  saved  by  thinking 
rightly  instead  of  doing  rightly,  by  word  instead  of  act, 
and  wish  instead  of  work : — these  are  the  true  fog 
children — clouds,  these,  without  water ;  bodies,  these, 
of  putrescent  vapour  and  skin,  without  blood  or  flesh : 
blown  bag-pipes  for  the  fiends  to  pipe  with — corrupt, 
and  corrupting, — "Swollen  with  wind,  and  the  rank 
mist  they  draw." 

24.  Lastly,  let  us  return  to  the  lines  respecting  the 
power  of  the  keys,  for  now  we  can  understand  them. 
Note  the  difference  between  Milton  and  Dante  in  their 
interpretation  of  this  power:  for  once,  the  latter  is  weaker 
in  thought ;  he  supposes  both  the  keys  to  be  of  the  gate  of 


OF  kings'  tkeasukees.  37 

heaven ;  one  is  of  gold,  the  other  of  silver :  they  are  given 
by  St.  Peter  to  the  sentinel  angel ;  and  it  is  not  easy  to 
determine  the  meaning  either  of  the  substances  of  the 
three  steps  of  the  gate,  or  of  the  two  keys.  But  Milton 
makes  one,  of  gold,  the  key  of  heaven ;  the  other,  of 
iron,  the  key  of  the  prison  in  which  the  wicked  teach- 
ers are  to  be  bound  who  "  have  taken  away  the  key  of 
knowledge,  yet  entered  not  in  themselves." 

We  have  seen  that  the  duties  of  bishop  and  pastor 
are  to  see,  and  feed ;  and,  of  all  who  do  so  it  is  said, 
"He  that  watereth,  shall  be  watered  also  himself."  But 
the  reverse  is  truth  also.  He  that  watereth  not,  shall 
be  withered  himself,  and  he  that  seeth  not,  shall  himself 
be  shut  out  of  sight, — shut  into  the  perpetual  prison- 
house.  And  that  prison  opens  here,  as  well  as  here- 
after :  he  who  is  to  be  bound  in  heaven  must  first  be 
bound  on  earth.  That  command  to  the  strong  angels, 
of  which  the  rock-apostle  is  the  image,  "  Take  him,  and 
bind  him  hand  and  foot,  and  cast  him  out,"  issues,  in  its 
measure,  against  the  teacher,  for  every  help  withheld, 
and  for  every  truth  refused,  and  for  every  falsehood 
enforced ;  so  that  he  is  more  strictly  fettered  the  more 
he  fetters,  and  farther  outcast,  as  he  more  and  more 
misleads,  till  at   last  the  bars  of  the  iron  cage  close 


38  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

upon  him,   and  as   "  the  golden  opes,  the   iron  shuts 
amain." 

25.  We  have  got  something  out  of  the  lines,  I  think,  and 
much  more  is  yet  to  be  found  in  them ;  but  we  have  done 
enough  by  way  of  example  of  the  kind  of  word-by-word 
examination  of  your  author  which  is  rightly  called 
"reading;"  watching  every  accent  and  expression,  and 
putting  ourselves  always  in  the  author's  place,  annihil- 
ating our  own  personality,  and  seeking  to  enter  into 
his,  so  as  to  be  able  assuredly  to  say,  "Thus  Milton 
thought,"  not "  Thus  /  thought,  in  mis-reading  Milton." 
And  by  this  process  you  will  gradually  come  to  attach 
less  weight  to  your  own  "  Thus  I  thought "  at  other 
times.  You  will  begin  to  perceive  that  what  you 
thought  was  a  matter  of  no  serious  importance  ; — that 
your  thoughts  on  any  subject  are  not  perhaps  the  clear- 
est and  wisest  that  could  be  arrived  at  thereupon  : — in 
fact,  that  unless  you  are  a  very  singular  person,  you 
cannot  be  said  to  have  any  "  thoughts  "  at  all ;  that  you 
have  no  materials  for  them,  in  any  serious  matters  ;* — 
no  right  to  "  think,"  but  only  to  try  to  learn  more  of  the 

*  Modern  ' '  Education  "  for  the  most  part  signifies  giving  people 
the  faculty  of  thinking  wrong  on  every  conceivable  subject  of  import- 
ance to  them.  -i 


or  kings'  teeasukies.  39 

facts.  Nay,  most  probably  all  your  life  (unless,  as  I 
said,  you  are  a  singular  person)  you  will  have  no  legiti- 
mate right  to  an  "opinion  "  on  any  business,  except  that 
instantly  under  your  hand.  "What  must  of  necessity  be 
done,  you  can  always  find  out,  beyond  question,  how  to 
do.  Have  you  a  house  to  keep  in  order,  a  commodity 
to  sell,  a  field  to  plough,  a  ditch  to  cleanse  ?  There 
need  be  no  two  opinions  about  these  proceedings ;  it 
is  at  your  peril  if  you  have  not  much  more  than  an 
"  opinion  "  on  the  way  to  manage  such  matters.  And 
also,  outside  of  your  own  business,  there  are  one  or  two 
subjects  on  which  you  are  bound  to  have  but  one  opin- 
ion. That  roguery  and  lying  are  objectionable,  and  are 
instantly  to  be  flogged  out  of  the  way  whenever  discov- 
ered ; — that  covetousness  and  love  of  quarrelling  are 
dangerous  dispositions  even  in  children,  and  deadly 
dispositions  in  men  and  nations  ; — that  in  the  end,  the 
God  of  heaven  and  earth  loves  active,  modest,  and  kind 
people,  and  hates  idle,  proud,  greedy,  and  cruel  ones ; — 
on  these  general  facts  you  are  bound  to  have  but  one 
and  that  a  very  strong,  opinion.  For  the  rest,  respect- 
ing religions,  governments,  sciences,  arts,  you  will  find 
that,  on  the  whole,  you  can  know  nothing, — judge  noth- 
ing ;  that  the  best  you  can  do,  even  though  you  may  be 


40  SESAME  AND   LILIES, 

a  well-educated  person,  is  to  be  silent,  and  strive  to  be 
wiser  every  day,  and  to  understand  a  little  more  of  the 
thoughts  of  others,  which  so  soon  as  you  try  to  do  hon- 
estly, you  will  discover  that  the  thoughts  even  of  the 
wisest  are  very  little  more  than  pertinent  questions. 
To  put  the  difficulty  into  a  clear  shape,  and  exhibit 
to  you  the  grounds  for  indecision,  that  is  all  they  can 
generally  do  for  you  ! — and  well  for  them  and  for  us, 
if  indeed  they  are  able  "to  mix  the  music  with  our 
thoughts,  and  sadden  us  with  heavenly  doubts."  This 
writer,  from  whom  I  have  been  reading  to  you,  is 
not  among  the  first  or  wisest :  he  sees  shrewdly  as  far 
as  he  sees,  and  therefore  it  is  easy  to  find  out  his  full 
meaning ;  but  with  the  greater  men,  you  cannot  fathom 
their  meaning  ;  they  do  not  even  wholly  measure  it 
themselves, — it  is  so  wide.  Suppose  I  had  asked  you, 
for  instance,  to  seek  for  Shakespeare's  opinion,  instead 
of  Milton's,  on  this  matter  of  Church  authority  ? — or  for 
Dante's?  Have  any  of  you,  at  this  instant,  the  least 
idea  what  either  thought  about  it?  Have  you  ever 
balanced  the  scene  with  the  bishops  in  Eichard  TIL 
against  the  character  of  Cranmer  ?  the  description  of  St. 
Francis  and  St.  Dominic  against  that  of  him  who  made 
Virgil  wonder  to  gaze  upon  him, — "  disteso,  tanto  vil- 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  41 

mente,  nell'  eterno  esilio ; "  or  of  kirn  whom  Dante 
stood  beside,  "  come  '1  frate  che  confessa  lo  perfido 
assassin  ?  "*  Snakespeare  and  Alighieri  knew  men  bet- 
ter than  most  of  us,  I  presume  !  They  were  both  in  the 
midst  of  the  main  struggle  between  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  powers.  They  had  an  opinion,  we  may  guess. 
But  where  is  it  ?  Bring  it  into  court !  Put  Shake- 
speare's or  Dante's  creed  into  articles,  and  send  it  up 
for  trial  by  the  Ecclesiastical  Courts ! 

26.  You  will  not  be  able,  I  tell  you  again,  for  many  and 
many  a  day,  to  come  at  the  real  purposes  and  teaching 
of  these  great  men ;  but  a  very  little  honest  study  of 
them  will  enable  you  to  perceive  that  what  you  took 
for  your  own  "  judgment "  was  mere  chance  prejudice, 
and  drifted,  helpless,  entangled  weed  of  castaway 
thought :  nay,  you  will  see  that  most  men's  minds  are 
indeed  little  better  than  rough  heath  wilderness,  neg- 
lected and  stubborn,  partly  barren,  partly  overgrown 
with  pestilent  brakes,  and  venomous,  wind-sown  herb- 
age of  evil  surmise  ;  that  the  first  thing  you  have  to  do  for 
them,  and  yourself,  is  eagerly  and  scornfully  to  set  fire 
to  this  ;  burn  all  the  jungle  into  wholesome  ash  heaps, 
and  then  plough  and  sow.  All  the  true  literary  work 
*  Inf.  xxiii.  125,  126  ;  xix.  49,  50. 


42  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

before  you,  for  life,  must  begin  with  obedience  to  that 
order,  ':  Break  up  your  fallow  ground,  and  sow  not 
■among  thorns." 

27.  II.*  Having  then  faithfully  listened  to  the  great 
teachers,  that  you  may  enter  into  their  Thoughts,  you 
have  yet  this  higher  advance  to  make ; — you  have  to 
enter  into  their  Hearts.  As  you  go  to  them  first  for 
clear  sight,  so  you  must  stay  with  them,  that  you  may 
share  at  last  their  just  and  mighty  Passion.  Passion, 
or  "  sensation."  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  word  ;  still  less 
of  the  thing.  You  have  heard  many  outcries  against 
sensation  lately  ;  but,  I  can  tell  you,  it  is  not  less  sen- 
sation we  want,  but  more.  The  ennobling  difference 
between  one  man  and  another, — between  one  animal 
and  another, — is  precisely  in  this,  that  one  feels  more 
than  another.  If  we  were  sponges,  perhaps  sensation 
might  not  be  easily  got  for  us  ;  if  we  were  earth-worms, 
liable  at  every  instant  to  be  cut  in  two  by  the  spade, 
perhaps  too  much  sensation  might  not  be  good  for  us. 
But,  being  human  creatures,  it  is  good  for  us ;  nay,  we 
are  only  human  in  so  far  as  we  are  sensitive,  and  our 
honour  is  precisely  in  proportion  to  our  passion. 

28.  You  know  I  said  of  that  great  and  pure  society  of 
the  dead,  that  it  would  allow  "  no  vain  or  vulgar  person  to 

*  Compare  IT  13  above. 


of  kings'  tkeasueies.  43 

enter  there."  What  do  you  think  I  meant  by  a  "vulgar" 
person?  "What  do  you  yourselves  mean  by  "vulgarity?  " 
You  will  find  it  a  fruitful  subject  of  thought ;  but, 
briefly,  the  essence  of  all  vulgarity  lies  in  want  of  sen- 
sation. Simple  and  innocent  vulgarity  is  merely  an  un- 
trained and  undeveloped  bluntness  of  body  and  mind ; 
but  in  true  inbred  vulgarity,  there  is  a  deathful  callous- 
ness, which,  in  extremity,  becomes  capable  of  every 
sort  of  bestial  habit  and  crime,  without  fear,  without 
pleasure,  without  horror,  and  without  pity.  It  is  in 
the  blunt  hand  and  the  dead  heart,  in  the  diseased 
habit,  in  the  hardened  conscience,  that  men  become 
vulgar ;  they  are  for  ever  vulgar,  precisely  in  j>roportion 
as  they  are  incapable  of  sympathy, — of  quick  under- 
standing,— of  all  that,  in  deep  insistance  on  the  com- 
mon, but  most  accurate  term,  may  be  called  the  "  tact " 
or  "  touch-faculty  "  of  body  and  soul ;  that  tact  which 
the  Mimosa  has  in  trees,  which  the  pure  woman  has 
above  all  creatures  ; — fineness  and  fulness  of  sensation 
beyond  reason; — the  guide  and  sanctifier  of  reason  itself. 
Eeason  can  but  determine  what  is  true  : — it  is  the  God- 
given  passion  of  humanity  which  alone  can  recognize 
what  God  has  made  good. 

29.  We  come  then  to  the  great  concourse  of  the  Dead, 


44  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

not  merely  to  know  from  them  what  is  True,  but  chiefly 
to  feel  with  them  what  is  just.  Now,  to  feel  with 
them,  we  must  be  like  them  ;  and  none  of  us  can  be- 
come that  without  pains.  As  the  true  knowledge  is 
disciplined  and  tested  knowledge, — not  the  first  thought 
that  comes, — so  the  true  passion  is  disciplined  and 
tested  j^assion, — not  the  first  passion  that  comes.  The 
first  that  come  are  the  vain,  the  false,  the  treacherous ; 
if  you  yield  to  them  they  will  lead  you  wildly  and  far 
in  vain  pursuit,  in  hollow  enthusiasm,  till  you  have  no 
true  purpose  and  no  true  passion  left.  Not  that  any 
feeling  possible  to  humanity  is  in  itself  wrong,  but  only 
wrong  when  undisciplined.  Its  nobility  is  in  its  force 
and  justice ;  it  is  wrong  when  it  is  weak,  and  felt  for 
paltry  cause.  There  is  a  mean  wonder,  as  of  a  child 
who  sees  a  juggler  tossing  golden  balls,  and  this  is  base, 
if  you  will.  But  do  you  think  that  the  wonder  is  igno- 
ble, or  the  sensation  less,  with  which  every  human  soul 
is  called  to  watch  the  golden  balls  of  heaven  tossed 
through  the  night  by  the  Hand  that  made  them  ?  There 
is  a  mean  curiosity,  as  of  a  child  opening  a  forbidden 
door,  or  a  servant  prying  into  her  master's  business ; — 
and  a  noble  curiosity,  questioning,  in  the  front  of  dan- 
ger, the  source  of  the  great  river  beyond  the  sand, — the 


OF  KINGS    TREASURIES.  45 

place  of  the  great  continents  beyond  the  sea ; — a  no- 
bler curiosity  still,  which  questions  of  the  source  of 
the  River  of  Life,  and  of  the  space  of  the  Continent  of 
Heaven, — things  which  "the  angels  desire  to  look  into." 
So  the  anxiety  is  ignoble,  with  which  you  linger  over 
the  course  and  catastrophe  of  an  idle  tale ;  but  do  you 
think  the  anxiety  is  less,  or  greater,  with  which  you 
watch,  or  ought  to  watch,  the  dealings  of  fate  and  des- 
tiny with  the  life  of  an  agonized  nation  ?  Alas !  it  is  the 
narrowness,  selfishness,  minuteness,  of  your  sensation 
that  you  have  to  deplore  in  England  at  this  day ;— sen- 
sation which  spends  itself  in  bouquets  and  speeches  ; 
in  revellings  and  junketings ;  in  sham  fights  and  gay 
puppet  shows,  while  you  can  look  on  and  see  noble  na- 
tions murdered,  man  by  man,  without  an  effort  or  a 
tear. 

30.  I  said  "  minuteness  "  and  "  selfishness  "  of  sensa- 
tion, but  in  a  word,  I  ought  to  have  said  "  injustice  "  or 
"  unrighteousness  "  of  sensation.  For  as  in  nothing  is 
a  gentleman  better  to  be  discerned  from  a  vulgar  per- 
son, so  in  nothing  is  a  gentle  nation  (such  nations  have 
been)  better  to  be  discerned  from  a  mob,  than  in  this, 
— that  their  feelings  are  constant  and  just,  results  of 
due  contemplation,  and  of  equal  thought.    You  can  talk 


46  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

a  mob  into  anything ;  its  feelings  may  be — usually  are 
— on  the  whole,  generous  and  right ;  but  it  has  no  foun- 
dation for  them,  no  hold  of  them ;  you  may  tease  or 
tickle  it  into  any,  at  your  pleasure ;  it  thinks  by  infec- 
tion, for  the  most  part,  catching  an  opinion  like  a  cold, 
and  there  is  nothing  so  little  that  it  will  not  roar  itself 
wild  about,  when  the  fit  is  on; — nothing  so  great  but 
it  will  forget  in  an  hour,  when  the  fit  is  past.  But 
a  gentleman's  or  a  gentle  nation's,  passions  are  just, 
measured  and  continuous.  A  great  nation,  for  instance, 
does  not  spend  its  entire  national  wits  for  a  couple  of 
months  in  weighing  evidence  of  a  single  ruffian's  having 
done  a  single  murder ;  and  for  a  couple  of  years  see 
its  own  children  murder  each  other  by  their  thousands 
or  tens  of  thousands  a  day,  considering  only  what  the 
effect  is  likely  to  be  on  the  price  of  cotton,  and  caring 
nowise  to  determine  which  side  of  battle  is  in  the  wrong. 
Neither  does  a  great  nation  send  its  poor  little  boys  to 
jail  for  stealing  six  walnuts  ;  and  allow  its  bankrupts  to 
steal  their  hundreds  or  thousands  with  a  bow,  and  its 
bankers,  rich  with  poor  men's  savings,  to  close  their 
doors  "  under  circumstances  over  which  they  have  no 
control,"  with  a  "  by  your  leave  ;  "  and  large  landed  es- 
tates to  be  bought  by  men  who  have  made  their  money 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  47 

by  going  with  armed  steamers  up  and  down  the  China 
Seas,  selling  opium  at  the  cannon's  mouth,  and  altering, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  foreign  nation,  the  common  high- 
wayman's demand  of  "your  money  or  your  life,"  into 
that  of  "your  money  and  your  life."  Neither  does  a 
great  nation  allow  the  lives  of  its  innocent  poor  to  be 
parched  out  of  them  by  fog  fever,  and  rotted  out  of  them 
by  dunghill  plague,  for  the  sake  of  sixpence  a  life  ex- 
tra per  week  to  its  landlords  ;*  and  then  debate,  with 
drivelling  tears,  and  diabolical  sympathies,  whether  it 
ought  not  piously  to  save,  and  nursingly  cherish,  the 
lives  of  its  murderers.  Also,  a  great  nation  having 
made  up  its  mind  that  hanging  is  quite  the  wholesomest 
process  for  its  homicides  in  general,  can  yet  with  mercy 
distinguish  between  the  degrees  of  guilt  in  homicides ; 
and  does  not  yelp  like  a  pack  of  frost-pinched  wolf-cubs 
on  the  blood-track  of  an  unhappy  crazed  boy,  or  grey- 
haired  clodpate  Othello,  "  perplexed  i'  the  extreme,"  at 
the  very  moment  that  it  is  sending  a  Minister  of  the 
Crown  to  make  polite  speeches  to  a  man  who  is  bayonet- 
ing young  girls  in  their  father's  sight,  and  killing  noble 
youths  in  cool  blood,  faster  than  a  country  butcher  kills 

*  See  note  at  end  of  lecture.  I  have  put  it  in  large  type,  because  the 
course  of  matters  since  it  was  written  has  made  it  perhaps  better 
worth  attention. 


48  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

lambs  in  spring.  And,  lastly,  a  great  nation  does  not 
mock  Heaven  and  its  Powers,  by  pretending  belief  in  a 
revelation  which  asserts  the  love  of  money  to  be  the 
root  of  all  evil,  and  declaring,  at  the  same  time,  that  it 
is  actuated,  and  intends  to  be  actuated,  in  all  chief  na- 
tional deeds  and  measures,  by  no  other  love. 

31.  My  friends,  I  do  not  know  why  any  of  us  should  talk 
about  reading.  We  want  some  sharper  discipline  than 
that  of  reading ;  but,  at  all  events,  be  assured,  we  can- 
not read.  No  reading  is  possible  for  a  people  with  its 
mind  in  this  state.  No  sentence  of  any  great  writer  is 
intelligible  to  them.  It  is  simply  and  sternly  impos- 
sible for  the  English  public,  at  this  moment,  to  under- 
stand any  thoughtful  writing, — so  incapable  of  thought 
has  it  become  in  its  insanity  of  avarice.  Happily,  our 
disease  is,  as  yet,  little  worse  than  this  incapacity  of 
thought ;  it  is  not  corruption  of  the  inner  nature  ;  we 
ring  true  still,  when  anything  strikes  home  to  us  ;  and 
though  the  idea  that  everything  should  "  pay  "  has  in- 
fected our  every  purpose  so  deeply,  that  even  when  we 
would  play  the  good  Samaritan,  we  never  take  out  our 
twopence  and  give  them  to  the  host,  without  saying, 
"  When  I  come  again,  thou  shalt  give  me  fourpence," 
there  is  a  capacity  of  noble  rjassion  left  in  our  hearts' 


OF  kings'  teeasukies.  49 

core.  We  show  it  in  our  work — in  our  war, — even  in  those 
unjust  domestic  affections  which  make  us  furious  at  a 
small  private  wrong,  while  we  are  polite  to  a  boundless 
public  one  :  we  are  still  industrious  to  the  last  hour  of  the 
day,  though  we  add  the  gambler's  fury  to  the  labourer's 
patience  ;  we  are  still  brave  to  the  death,  though  inca- 
pable of  discerning  true  cause  for  battle;  and  are  still 
true  in  affection  to  our  own  flesh,  to  the  death,  as  the 
sea-monsters  are,  and  the  rock-eagles.  And  there  is 
hope  for  a  nation  while  this  can  be  still  said  of  it.  As 
long  as  it  holds  its  life  in  its  hand,  ready  to  give  it  for 
its  honour  (though  a  foolish  honour),  for  its  love  (though 
a  selfish  love),  and  for  its  business  (though  a  base  busi- 
ness), there  is  hope  for  it.  But  hope  only  ;  for  this  in- 
stinctive, reckless  virtue  cannot  last.  No  nation  can 
last,  which  has  made  a  mob  of  itself,  however  generous 
at  heart.  It  must  discipline  its  passions,  and  direct 
them,  or  they  will  discipline  it,  one  day,  with  scorpion 
whips.  Above  all,  a  nation  cannot  last  as  a  money- 
making  mob  :  it  cannot  with  impunity, — it  cannot  with 
existence, — go  on  despising  literature,  despising  science, 
despising  art,  despising  nature,  despising  compassion, 
and  concentrating  its  soul  on  Pence.  Do  you  think 
these  are  harsh  or  wild  words?     Have  patience  with 


50  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

me  but  a  little  longer.     I  will  prove  their  truth  to  you, 
clause  by  clause. 

32.  I.  I  say  first  we  have  despised  literature.  What  do 
we,  as  a  nation,  care  about  books?  How  much  do  you 
think  we  spend  altogether  on  our  libraries,  public  or 
private,  as  compared  with  what  we  spend  on  our  horses  ? 
If  a  man  spends  lavishly  on  his  library,  you  call  him 
mad — a  biblio-maniac.  But  you  never  call  any  one  a 
horse-maniac,  though  men  ruin  themselves  every  day 
by  their  horses,  and  you  do  not  hear  of  people  ruining 
themselves  by  their  books.  Or,  to  go  lower  still,  how 
much  do  you  think  the  contents  of  the  book-shelves  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  public  and  private,  would  fetch, 
as  compared  with  the  contents  of  its  wine-cellars? 
What  position  would  its  expenditure  on  literature  take, 
as  compared  with  its  expenditure  on  luxurious  eating  ? 
Wo  talk  of  food  for  the  mind,  as  of  food  for  the  body  : 
now  a  good  book  contains  such  food  inexhaustibly ;  it  is 
a  provision  for  life,  and  for  the  best  part  of  us ;  yet  how 
long  most  people  would  look  at  the  best  book  before 
they  would  give  the  price  of  a  large  turbot  for  it ! 
Though  there  have  been  men  who  have  pinched  their 
stomachs  and  bared  their  backs  to  buy  a  book,  whose 
libraries  were  cheaper  to  them,  I  think,  in  the  end,  than 


1       £L  0  2-  A/  K1 

OF  KINGS    TREASURIES^.'  51 

most  men's  dinners  are.  We  are  few  of  us  put  to  such 
trial,  and  more  the  pity ;  for,  indeed,  a  precious  thing  is. 
all  the  more  precious  to  us  if  it  has  been  won  by  work 
or  economy  ;  and  if  public  libraries  were  half  as  costly 
as  public  dinners,  or  books  cost  the  tenth  part  of  what 
bracelets  do,  even  foolish  men  and  women  might  some- 
times suspect  there  was  good  in  reading,  as  well  as  in 
munching  and  sparkling ;  whereas  the  very  cheapness 
of  literature  is  making  even  wise  people  forget  that  if  a 
book  is  worth  reading,  it  is  worth  buying.  No  book  is 
worth  anything  which  is  not  worth  much;  nor  is  it  ser- 
viceable, until  it  has  been  read,  and  reread,  and  loved, 
and  loved  again ;  and  marked,  so  that  you  can  refer  to 
the  passages  you  want  in  it,  as  a  soldier  can  seize  the 
weapon  he  needs  in  an  armoury,  or  a  housewife  bring 
the  spice  she  needs  from  her  store.  Bread  of  flour  is 
good :  but  there  is  bread,  sweet  as  honey,-if  we  would 
eat  it,  in  a  good  book ;  and  the  family  must  be  poor 
indeed  which,  once  in  their  lives,  cannot,  for  such  multi- 
pliable  barley-loaves,  pay  their  baker's  bill.  "We  call 
ourselves  a  rich  nation,  and  we  are  filthy  and  foolish 
enough  to  thumb  each  other's  books  out  of  circulating 
^     libraries ! 

33.  II.  I  say  we  have  despised  science.    "  "What ! "  you 


52  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

exclaim  "  are  we  not  foremost  in  all  discovery,*  and  is 
not  the  whole  world  giddy  by  reason,  or  unreason,  of 
our  inventions?"  Yes;  but  do  you  suppose  that  is 
national  work  ?  That  work  is  all  done  in  spite  of  the 
nation ;  by  private  people's  zeal  and  money.  We  are 
glad  enough,  indeed,  to  make  our  profit  of  science ;  we 
snap  up  anything  in  the  way  of  a  scientific  bone  that 
has  meat  on  it,  eagerly  enough ;  but  if  the  scientific  man 
comes  for  a  bone  or  a  crust  to  us,  that  is  another  story. 
What  have  we  publicly  done  for  science  ?  We  are 
obliged  to  know  what  o'clock  it  is,  for  the  safety  of  our 
ships,  and  therefore  we  pay  for  an  observatory ;  and  we 
allow  ourselves,  in.  the  person  of  our  Parliament,  to  be 
annually  tormented  into  doing  something,  in  a  slovenly 
way,  for  the  British  Museum ;  sullenly  apprehending 
that  to  be  a  place  for  keeping  stuffed  birds  in,  to  amuse 
our  children.  If  anybody  will  pay  for  their  own  telescope, 
and  resolve  another  nebula,  we  cackle  over  the  discern- 
ment as  if  it  were  our  own  ;  if  one  in  ten  thousand  of  our 
hunting  squires  suddenly  perceives  that  the  earth  was 
indeed  made  to  be  something  else  than  a  portion  for 

*  Since  this  was  written,  the  answer  has  become  definitely — No  ; 
we  have  surrendered  the  field  of  Arctic  discovery  to  the  Continental 
nations,  as  being  ourselves  too  poor  to  pay  for  ships. 


of  kings'  treasuries.  53 

foxes,  and  burrows  in  it  himself,  and  tells  us  where  the 
gold  is,  and  where  the  coals,  we  understand  that  there 
is  some  use  in  that ;  and  very  properly  knight  him  :  but 
is  the  accident  of  his  having  found  out  how  to  employ 
himself  usefully  any  credit  to  us?  (The  negation  of 
such  discovery  among  his  brother  squires  may  perhaps 
be  some  cZ/scredit  to  us,  if  we  would  consider  of  it.)  But 
if  you  doubt  these  generalities,  here  is  one  fact  for  us 
all  to  meditate  upon,  illustrative  of  our  love  of  science. 
Two  years  ago  there  was  a  collection  of  the  fossils  of 
Solenhofen  to  be  sold  in  Bavaria ;  the  best  in  existence, 
containing  many  specimens  unique  for  perfectness,  and 
one,  unique  as  an  example  of  a  species  (a  whole  king- 
dom of  unknown  living  creatures  being  announced  by 
that  fossil).  This  collection,  of  which  the  mere  market 
worth,  among  private  buyers,  would  probably  have  been 
some  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  pounds,  was  offered 
to  the  English  nation  for  seven  hundred :  but  we  would 
not  give  seven  hundred,  and  the  whole  series  would 
have  been  in  the  Munich  Museum  at  this  moment,  if 
Professor  Owen  *  had  not,  with  loss  of  his  own  time,  and 

*1  state  this  fact  without  Professor  Owen's  permission  :  which  of 
course  he  could  not  with  propriety  have  granted,  had  I  asked  it  :  but  I 
consider  it  so  important  that  the  public  should  be  aware  of  the  fact  that 
I  do  what  seems  to  be  right  though  rude. 


54  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

patient  tormenting  of  the  British  public  in  person  of  its 
representatives,  got  leave  to  give  four  hundred  pounds 
at  once,  and  himself  become  answerable  for  the  other 
three !  which  the  said  public  will  doubtless  pay  him 
eventually,  but  sulkily,  and  caring  nothing  about  the 
matter  all  the  while  ;  only  always  ready  to  cackle  if  any 
credit  comes  of  it.  Consider,  I  beg  of  you,  arithmeti- 
cally, what  this  fact  means.  Tour  annual  expenditure 
for  public  purposes  (a  third  of  it  for  military  apparatus), 
is  at  least  fifty  millions.  Now  7001.  is  to  50,000,000?. 
roughly,  as  seven  pence  to  two  thousand  pounds.  Sup- 
pose then,  a  gentleman  of  unknown  income,  but  whose 
wealth  was  to  be  conjectured  from  the  fact  that  he  spent 
two  thousand  a  year  on  his  park- walls  and  footmen  only, 
professes  himself  fond  of  science ;  and  that  one  of  his 
servants  comes  eagerly  to  tell  him  that  an  unique  col- 
lection of  fossils,  giving  clue  to  a  new  era  of  creation,  is 
to  be  had  for  the  sum  of  seven  pence  sterling  ;  and  that 
the  gentleman,  who  is  fond  of  science,  and  spends  two 
thousand  a  year  on  his  park,  answers,  after  keeping  his 
servant  waiting  several  months,  "Well!  I'll  give  you 
four  pence  for  them,  if  you  will  be  answerable  for  the 
extra  three  pence  yourself,  till  next  year !  " 

34  III.  I  say  you  have  despised  Art !    "  What! "  you 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  55 

again  answer,  "  have  we  not  Art  exhibitions,  miles  long? 
and  do  we  not  pay  thousands  of  pounds  for  single  pic- 
tures? and  have  we  not  Art  schools  and  institutions, 
more  than  ever  nation  had  before  ?  "  Yes,  truly,  but  all 
that  is  for  the  sake  of  the  shop.  You  would  fain  sell 
canvas  as  well  as  coals,  and  crockery  as  well  as  iron ; 
you  would  take  every  other  nation's  bread  out  of  its 
mouth  if  you  could  ;*  not  being  able  to  do  that,  your 
ideal  of  life  is  to  stand  in  the  thoroughfares  of  the  world, 
like  Ludgate  apprentices,  screaming  to  every  passer-by, 
"What  d'ye  lack  ?  "  You  know  nothing  of  your  own 
faculties  or  circumstances ;  you  fancy  that,  among  your 
damp,  flat,  fields  of  clay,  you  can  have  as  quickart-fancy 
as  the  Frenchman  among  his  bronzed  vines,  or  the 
Italian  under  his  volcanic  cliffs ; — that  Art  may  be 
learned  as  book-keeping  is,  and  when  learned  will  give 
you  more  books  to  keep.  You  care  for  pictures,  abso- 
lutely, no  more  than  you  do  for  the  bills  pasted  on  your 
dead  walls.  There  is  always  room  on  the  walls  for  the 
bills  to  be  read, — never  for  the  pictures  to  be  seen. 

*  That  was  our  real  idea  of  ' '  Free  Trade  "— "  All  the  trade  to  myself." 
You  find  now  that  by  "competition"  other  people  can  manage  to  sell 
something  as  well  as  you — and  now  we  call  for  Protection  again. 
Wretches  ! 


56  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

You  do  not  know  what  pictures  you  have  (by  repute) 
in  the  country,  nor  whether  they  are  false  or  true,  nor 
whether  they  are  taken  care  of  or  not ;  in  foreign  coun- 
tries, you  calmly  see  the  noblest  existing  pictures  in  the 
world  rotting  in  abandoned  wreck — (in  Venice  you  saw 
the  Austrian  guns  deliberately  pointed  at  the  palaces 
containing  them),  and  if  you  heard  that  all  the  fine  pic- 
tures in  Europe  were  made  into  sand-bags  to-morrow 
on  the  Austrian  forts,  it  would  not  trouble  you  so  much 
as  the  chance  of  a  brace  or  two  of  game  less  in  your 
own  bags,  in  a  day's  shooting.  That  is  your  national 
love  of  Art. 

35.  IV.  You  have  despised  nature  ;  that  is  to  say,  all 
the  deep  and  sacred  sensations  of  natural  scenery.  The 
French  revolutionists  made  stables  of  the  cathedrals  of 
France  ;  you  have  made  racecourses  of  the  cathedrals  of 
the  earth.  Your  one  conception  of  pleasure  is  to  drive 
in  railroad  carriages  round  their  aisles,  and  eat  off  their 
altars.*  You  have  put  a  railroad  bridge  over  the  fall  of 
Schaffhausen.     You  have  tunnelled  the  cliffs  of  Lucerne 

*I  meant  that  the  beautiful  places  of  the  world — Switzerland,  Italy, 
South  Germany,  and  so  on — are,  indeed,  the  truest  cathedrals — places 
to  be  reverent  in,  and  to  worship  in  ;  and  that  we  only  care  to  drive 
through  them  :  and  to  eat  and  drink  at  their  most  sacred  places. 


OF  kings'  teeasuries.  57 

by  Tell's  chapel ;  you  have  destroyed  the  Clarens  shore 
of  the  Lake  of  Geneva ;  there  is  not  a  quiet  valley  in 
England  that  you  have  not  filled  with  bellowing  fire ; 
there  is  no  particle  left  of  English  land  which  you  have 
not  trampled  coal  ashes  into* — nor  any  foreign  city  in 
which  the  spread  of  your  presence  is  not  marked  among 
its  fair  old  streets  and  happy  gardens  by  a  consuming 
white  leprosy  of  new  hotels  and  perfumers'  shops :  the 
Alps  themselves,  which  your  own  poets  used  to  love  so 
reverently,  you  look  upon  as  soaped  poles  in  a  bear- 
garden, which  you  set  yourselves  to  climb,  and  slide 
down  again,  with  "  shrieks  of  delight."  When  you  are 
past  shrieking,  having  no  human  articulate  voice  to  say 
you  are  glad  with,  you  fill  the  quietude  of  their  valleys 
with  gunpowder  blasts,  and  rush  home,  red  with  cutane- 
ous eruption  of  conceit,  and  voluble  with  convulsive, 
hiccough  of  self-satisfaction.  I  think  nearly  the  two 
sorrowfullest  spectacles  I  have  ever  seen  in  humanity, 
taking  the  deep  inner  significance  of  them,  are  the 
English  mobs  in  the  valley  of  Chamouni,  amusing  them- 

*  I  was  singularly  struck,  some  years  ago,  by  rinding  all  the 
river  shore  at  Richmond,  in  Yorkshire,  black  in  its  earth,  from 
the  mere  drift  of  soot-laden  air  from  places  many  miles  away. 


58  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

selves  with  firing  rusty  howitzers ;  and  the  Swiss  vint- 
agers of  Zurich  expressing  their  Christian  thanks  for 
the  gift  of  the  vine,  by  assembling  in  knots  in  the  "  tow- 
ers of  the  vineyards,"  and  slowly  loading  and  firing 
horse-pistols  from  morning  till  evening.  It  is  pitiful  to 
have  dim  conceptions  of  beauty ;  more  pitiful,  it  seems 
to  me,  to  have  conceptions  like  these,  of  mirth. 

36.  Lastly.  Tou  despise  compassion.  There  is  no  need 
of  words  of  mine  for  proof  of  this.  I  will  merely  print 
one  of  the  newspaper  paragraphs  which  I  am  in  the 
habit  of  cutting  out  and  throwing  into  my  store-drawer  ; 
here  is  one  from  a  Daily  Telegraph  of  an  early  date  this 
year  (1867) ;  (date  which,  though  by  me  carelessly  left 
unmarked,  is  easily  discoverable ;  for  on  the  back  of 
the  slip,  there  is  the  announcement  that  "yesterday 
the  seventh  of  the  special  services  of  this  year  was 
performed  by  the  Bishop  of  Ripon  in  St.  Paul's "  ;) 
it  relates  only  one  of  such  facts  as  happen  now  daily ; 
this,  by  chance  having  taken  a  form  in  which  it 
came  before  the  coroner.  I  will  print  the  paragraph  in 
red.  Be  sure,  the  facts  themselves  are  written  in  that 
colour,  in  a  book  which  we  shall  all  of  us,  literate  or 
illiterate,  have  to  read  our  page  of,  some  day. 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  59 

"An  inquiry  was  held  on  Friday  by  Mr.  Richards; 
deputy  coroner,  at  the  White  Horse  Tavern,  Christ 
Church,  Spitalfields,  respecting  the  death  of  Michael 
Collins,  aged  58  years.  Mary  Collins,  a  miserable- 
looking  woman,  said  that  she  lived  with  the  deceased 
and  his  son  in  a  room  at  2,  Cobb's  court,  Christ  Church. 
Deceased  was  a  '  translator '  of  boots.  Witness  went 
out  and  bought  old  boots  ;  deceased  and  his  son  made 
them  into  good  ones,  and  then  witness  sold  them  for 
what  she  could  get  at  the  shops,  which  was  very  little 
indeed.  Deceased  and  his  son  used  to  work  night  and 
day  to  try  and  get  a  little  bread  and  tea,  and  pay  for 
the  room  (2s.  a  week),  so  as  to  keep  the  home  together. 
On  Friday  night  week  deceased  got  up  from  his  bench 
and  began  to  shiver.  He  threw  down  the  boots,  say- 
ing, "  Somebody  else  must  finish  them  when  I  am  gone, 
for  I  can  do  no  more."  There  was  no  fire,  and  he  said, 
"I  would  be  better  if  I  was  warm."  Witness  therefore 
took  two  pairs  of  translated  boots  *  to  sell  at  the  shop, 
but  she  could  only  get  14c?.  for  the  two  pairs,  for  the 

*  One  of  the  things  which  we  must  very  resolutely  enforce,  for  the 
good  of  all  classes,  in  our  future  arrangements,  must  be  that  they  wear 
no  "  translated  "  articles  of  dress.     See  the  preface. 


60  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

people  at  the  shop  said,  "  "We  must  have  our  profit." 
Witness  got  141b.  of  coal,  and  a  little  tea  and  bread. 
Her  son  sat  up  the  whole  night  to  make  the  "  transla- 
tions," to  get  money,  but  deceased  died  on  Saturday 
morning.  The  family  never  had  enough  to  eat. — Coroner: 
"  It  seems  to  me  deplorable  that  you  did  not  go  into  the 
workhouse."  Witness  :  "  We  wanted  the  comforts  of  our 
little  home."  A  juror  asked  what  the  comforts  were,  for 
he  only  saw  a  little  straw  in  the  corner  of  the  room,  the 
windows  of  which  were  broken.  The  witness  began  to 
cry,  and  said  that  they  had  a  quilt  and  other  little 
things.  The  deceased  said  he  never  would  go  into  the 
workhouse.  In  summer,  when  the  season  was  good, 
they  sometimes  made  as  much  as  10s.  profit  in  the 
week.  They  then  always  saved  towards  the  next  week, 
which  was  generally  a  bad  one.  In  winter  they  made 
not  half  so  much.  For  three  years  they  had  been 
getting  from  bad  to  worse. — Cornelius  Collins  said  that 
he  had  assisted  his  father  since  1847.  They  used  to  work 
so  far  into  the  night  that  both  nearly  lost  their  eyesight. 
Witness  now  had  a  film  over  his  eyes.  Five  years  ago 
deceased  applied  to  the  parish  for  aid.  The  relieving 
oflicer  gave  him  a  41b.  loaf,  and  told  him  if  he  came 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  61 

again  he  should  "  get  the  stones."  *  That  disgusted 
deceased,  and  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  them 
since.  They  got  worse  and  worse  until  last  Friday 
week,  when  they  had  not  even  a  halfpenny  to  buy  a 

*  This  abbreviation  of  the  penalty  of  useless  labour  is  curiously  co- 
incident in  verbal  form  with  a  certain  passage  which  some  of  us  may 
remember.  It  may  perhaps  be  well  to  preserve  beside  this  paragraph 
another  cutting  out  of  my  store-drawer,  from  the  Morning  Post,  of 
about  a  parallel  date,  Friday,  March  10th,  1865  : — "  The  salons  of 
Mme.  0 ,  who  did  the  honours  with  clever  imitative  grace  and  ele- 
gance, were  crowded  with  princes,  dukes,  marquises,  and  counts — in 
fact,  with  the  same  male  company  as  one  meets  at  the  parties  of  the 
Princess  Metternich  and  Madame  Drouyn  de  Lhuys.  Some  English 
peers  and  members  of  Parliament  were  present,  and  appeared  to  enjoy 
the  animated  and  dazzlingly  improper  scene.  On  the  second  floor  the 
supper  tables  were  loaded  with  every  delicacy  of  the  season.  That  your 
readers  may  form  some  idea  of  the  dainty  fare  of  the  Parisian  demi- 
monde, I  copy  the  menu  of  the  supper,  which  was  served  to  all  the  guests 
(about  200)  seated  at  four  o'clock.  Choice  Yquem,  Johannisberg,  Laf- 
fitte,  Tokay,  and  Champagne  of  the  finest  vintages  were  served  most 
lavishly  throughout  the  morning.  After  supper  dancing  was  resumed 
with  increased  animation,  and  the  ball  terminated  with  a  chaine  dia- 
bolique  and  a  cancan  aVenfcr  at  seven  in  the  morning.  (Morning- 
service — '  Ere  the  fresh  lawns  appeared,  under  the  opening  eyelids  of 
the  Morn. — ') .-  Here  is  the  menu  : — '  Consomme  de  volaille  a  la  Bagra- 
tion  i  16  hors-d'oeuvres  varies.  Bouchees  it  la  Talleyrand.  Saumons 
f  roids,  sauce  Ravigote.  Filets  de  bceuf  en  Bellevue,  timbales  milanaises 
chaudfroid  de  gibier.  Dindes  truffees.  Pates  de  foies  gras,  buissons 
d'ecrevisses,  salades  venetiennes,  gelees  blanches  aux  fruits,  gateaux 
mancini,  parisiens  et  p&risiennes.   Fromages  glaces  Ananas.   Dessert. 


G2  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

candle.  Deceased  then  lay  down  on  the  straw,  and  said 
he  could  not  live  till  morning. — A  juror  :  "You  are  dy- 
ing of  starvation  yourself,  and  you  ought  to  go  into  the 
house  until  the  summer."  Witness :  "  If  we  went  in  we 
should  die.  When  we  come  out  in  the  summer  we 
should  be  like  people  dropped  from  the  sky.  No  one 
would  know  us,  and  we  would  not  have  even  a  room. 
I  could  work  now  if  I  had  food,  for  my  sight  would  get 
better."  Dr.  G.  P.  Walker  said  deceased  died  from 
syncope,  from  exhaustion,  from  want  of  food.  The  de- 
ceased had  had  no  bedclothes.  For  four  months  he 
had  had  nothing  but  bread  to  eat.  There  was  not  a 
particle  of  fat  in  the  body.  There  was  no  disease,  but 
if  there  had  been  medical  attendance,  he  might  have 
survived  the  syncope  or  fainting.  The  coroner  having 
remarked  upon  the  painful  nature  of  the  case,  the  jury 
returned  the  following  verdict,  "  That  deceased  died 
from  exhaustion  from  want  of  food  and  the  com- 
mon necessaries  of  life  ;  also  through  want  of  medical 
aid." 

37.  "  Why  would  witness  not  go  into  the  workhouse  ?  " 
you  ask.  Well,  the  poor  seem  to  have  a  prejudice 
against  the  workhouse  which  the  rich  have  not ;  for  of 
course  every  one  who  takes  a  pension  from  Government 


OF  KINGS'   TREASURIES.  63 

goes  into  the  workhouse  on  a  grand  scale  :  *  only  the 
workhouses  for  the  rich  do  not  involve  the  idea  of  work, 
and  should  be  called  play-houses.  But  the  poor  like 
to  die  independently,  it  ajDpears  ;  perhaps  if  we  made 
the  play-houses  for  them  pretty  and  pleasant  enough, 
or  gave  them  their  pensions  at  home,  and  allowed  them 
a  little  introductory  peculation  with  the  public  money, 
their  minds  might  be  reconciled  to  the  conditions.  Mean- 
time, here  are  the  facts  :  we  make  our  relief  either  so  in- 
sulting to  them,  or  so  painful,  that  they  rather  die  than 
take  it  at  our  hands ;  or,  for  third  alternative,  we  leave 
them  so  untaught  and  foolish  that  they  starve  like  brute 
creatures,  wild  and  dumb,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  or 
what  to  ask.  I  say,  you  despise  compassion  ;  if  you  did 
not,  such  a  newspaper  paragraph  would  be  as  impossible 
in  a  Christian  country  as  a  deliberate  assassination  per- 
mitted in  its  public  streets.f     "  Christian  "  did  I  say  ? 

*  Please  observe  this  statement,  and  think  of  it,  and  consider  how 
it  happens  that  a  poor  old  woman  will  be  ashamed  to  take  a  shilling 
a  week  from  the  country — but  no  one  is  ashamed  to  take  a  pension  of 
a  thousand  a  year. 

f  I  am  heartily  glad  to  see  such  a  paper  as  the  Poll  Mall  Gazette 
established  ;  for  the  power  of  the  press  in  the  hands  of  highly-educated 
men,  in  independent  position,  and  of  honest  purpose,  may  indeed  be. 


64  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

Alas,  if  we  were  but  wholesomely  ?m-Ckristian,  it  would 

come  all  that  it  has  been  hitherto  vainly  vaunted  to  bo.  Its  editor  will 
therefore,  I  doubt  not,  pardon  me,  in  that,  by  very  reason  of  my  respect 
for  the  journal,  I  do  not  let  pass  unnoticed  an  article  in  its  third  num- 
ber, page  5,  which  was  wrong  in  every  word  of  it,  with  the  intense 
wrongness  which  only  an  honest  man  can  achieve  who  has  taken  a  false 
turn  of  thought  in  the  outset,  and  is  following  it,  regardless  of  conse- 
quences.    It  contained  at  the  end  this  notable  passage  : — 

' '  The  bread  of  affliction,  and  the  water  of  affliction — aye,  and  the  bed- 
steads and  blankets  of  affliction,  are  the  very  utmost  that  the  law  ought 
to  give  to  outcasts  merely  as  outcasts."  I  merely  put  beside  this  ex- 
pression of  the  gentlemanly  mind  of  England  in  1865,  a  part  of  the 
message  which  Isaiah  was  ordered  to  "  lift  up  his  voice  like  a  trumpet" 
in  declaring  to  the  gentlemen  of  his  day  :  "Ye  fast  for  strife,  and  to 
smite  with  the  fist  of  wickedness.  Is  not  this  the  fast  that  I  have 
chosen,  to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou  bring  the  poor 
that  are  cast  out  (margin  'afflicted')  to  tliy  house."  The  falsehood  on 
which  the  writer  had  mentally  founded  himself,  as  previously  stated  by 
him,  was  this  :  "To  confound  the  functions  of  the  dispensers  of  the 
poor-rates  with  those  of  the  dispensers  of  a  charitable  institution  is  a 
great  and  pernicious  error."  This  sentence  is  so  accurately  and  ex- 
quisitely wrong,  that  its  substance  must  be  thus  reversed  in  our  minds 
before  we  can  deal  with  any  existing  problem  of  national  distress.  "  To 
understand  that  the  dispensers  of  the  poor-rates  are  the  almoners  of  the 
nation,  and  should  distribute  its  alms  with  a  gentleness  and  freedom  of 
hand  as  mv.ch  greater  and  franker  than  that  possible  to  individual 
charity,  as  the  collective  national  wisdom  and  power  may  be  supposed 
greater  than  those  of  any  single  person,  is  the  foundation  of  all  law  re- 
specting pauperism."  (Since  this  was  written  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
has  become  a  mere  party  paper — like  the  rest  ;  but  it  writes  well,  and 
does  more  good  than  mischief  on  the  whole.) 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  65 

be  impossible  :  it  is  our  imaginary  Christianity  that 
helps  us  to  commit  these  crimes,  for  we  revel  and  lux- 
uriate in  our  faith,  for  the  lewd  sensation  of  it ;  dress- 
ing it  up,  like  everything  else,  in  fiction.  The  dramatic 
Christianity  of  the  organ  and  aisle,  of  dawn-service  and 
twilight-revival — the  Christianity  which  we  do  not  fear 
to  mix  the  mockery  of,  pictorially,  with  our  play  about 
the  devil,  in  our  Satanellas, — Roberts, — Fausts ;  chant- 
ing hymns  through  traceried  windows  for  back-ground 
effect,  and  artistically  modulating  the  "Dio"  through 
variation  on  variation  of  mimicked  prayer :  (while  wo 
distribute  tracts,  next  day,  for  the  benefit  of  unculti- 
vated swearers,  upon  what  we  suppose  to  be  the  signi- 
fication of  the  Third  Commandment;) — this  gas-lighted, 
and  gas-inspired,  Christianity,  we  are  triumphant  in, 
and  draw  back  the  hem  of  our  robes  from  the  touch  of 
the  heretics  who  dispute  it.  But  to  do  a  piece  of  com- 
mon Christian  righteousness  in  a  plain  English  word 
or  deed;  to  make  Christian  law  any  rule  of  life,  and 
found  one  National  act  or  hope  thereon, — we  know  too 
well  what  our  faith  comes  to  for  that!  You  might 
sooner  get  lightning  out  of  incense  smoke  than  true 
action  or  passion  out  of  your  modern  English  religion. 
You  had  better  get  rid  of  the  smoke,  and  the  organ 


66  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

pipes,  botli :  leave  them,  and  the  Gothic  windows,  and 
the  painted  glass,  to  the  property  man ;  give  up  your 
carburetted  hydrogen  ghost  in  one  healthy  expiration, 
and  look  after  Lazarus  at  the  door-step.  For  there  is 
a  true  Church  wherever  one  hand  meets  another  help- 
fully, and  that  is  the  only  holy  or  Mother  Church  which 
ever  was,  or  ever  shall  be. 

38.  All  these  pleasures,  then,  and  all  these  virtues,  I 
repeat,  you  nationally  despise.  You  have,  indeed,  men 
among  you  who  do  not ;  by  whose  work,  by  whose 
strength,  by  whose  life,  by  whose  death,  you  live, 
and  never  thank  them.  Your  wealth,  your  amuse- 
ment, your  pride,  would  all  be  alike  impossible,  but 
for  those  whom  you  scorn  or  forget.  The  police- 
man, who  is  walking  up  and  down  the  black  lane  all 
night  to  watch  the  guilt  you  have  created  there  ;  and 
may  have  his  brains  beaten  out,  and  be  maimed  for  life, 
at  any  moment,  and  never  be  thanked  :  the  sailor  wrest- 
ling with  the  sea's  rage  ;  the  quiet  student  poring  over 
his  book  or  his  vial ;  the  common  worker,  without 
praise,  and  nearly  without  bread,  fulfilling  his  task  as 
your  horses  drag  your  carts,  hopeless,  and  spurned  of 
all :  these  are  the  men  by  whom  England  lives ;  but 
they  are  not  the  nation  ;   they  are  only  the  body  and 


OF  kings'  tkeasumes.  67 

nervous  force  of  it,  acting  still  from  old  liabit  in  a 
convulsive  perseverance,  while  the  mind  is  gone.  Our 
National  wish  and  purpose  are  to  be  amused ;  our  Na- 
tional religion  is  the  performance  of  church  ceremonies, 
and  preaching  of  soporific  truths  (or  untruths)  to  keep 
the  mob  quietly  at  work,  while  we  amuse  ourselves ; 
and  the  necessity  for  this  amusement  is  fastening  on  us 
as  a  feverous  disease  of  parched  throat  and  wandering 
eyes — senseless,  dissolute,  merciless.* 

39.  When  men  are  rightly  occupied,  their  amusement 
grows  out  of  their  work,  as  the  colour-petals  out 
of  a  fruitful  flower; — when  they  are  faithfully  help- 
ful and  compassionate,  all  their  emotions  become 
steady,  deep,  perpetual,  and  vivifying  to  the  soul 
as  the  natural  pulse  of  the  body.  But  now,  hav- 
ing no  true  business,  we  pour  our  whole  masculine 
energy  into  the  false  business  of  money-making ; 
and  having  no  true  emotion,  we  must  have  false  emo- 
tions dressed  up  for  us  to  play  with,  not  innocently, 
as  children  with  dolls,  but  guiltily  and  darkly,  as  the 
idolatrous  Jews  with  their  pictures  on  cavern  walls, 

*How  literally  that  word  Bis-Base;  the  Negation  and  impossibility 
of  Ease,  expresses  the  entire  moral  state  of  our  English  Industry  and 
its  Amusements. 


b»  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

"which  men  had  to  dig  to  detect.  The  justice  we  do  not 
execute,  we  mimic  in  the  novel  and  on  the  stage ;  for 
the  beauty  we  destroy  in  nature,  we  substitute  the  met- 
amorphosis of  the  pantomime,  and  (the  human  nature 
of  us  imperatively  requiring  awe  and  sorrow  of  some 
kind)  for  the  noble  grief  we  should  have  borne  with  our 
fellows,  and  the  pure  tears  we  should  have  wept  with 
them,  we  gloat  over  the  pathos  of  the  police  court,  and 
gather  the  night-dew  of  the  grave. 

40.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  true  significance  of 
these  things ;  the  facts  are  frightful  enough; — the  meas- 
ure of  national  fault  involved  in  them  is  perhaps  not  as 
great  as  it  would  at  first  seem.  We  permit,  or  cause,  thou- 
sands of  deaths  daily,  but  we  mean  no  harm ;  we  set  fire 
to  houses,  and  ravage  peasants'  fields  ;  yet  we  should 
be  sorry  to  find  we  had  injured  anybody.  We  are  still 
kind  at  heart ;  still  capable  of  virtue,  but  only  as 
children  are.  Chalmers,  at  the  end  of  his  long  life, 
having  had  much  power  with  the  public,  being  plagued 
in  some  serious  matter  by  a  reference  to  "  public  opin- 
ion," uttered  the  impatient  exclamation,  "  The  public  is 
just  a  great  baby!  "  And  the  reason  that  I  have  al- 
lowed all  these  graver  subjects  of  thought  to  mix  them- 
selves up  with  an  inquiry  into  methods  of  reading,  is 


OF  kings'  teeasueies.  69 

that,  tlie  more  I  see  of  our  national  faults  and  miseries, 
the  more  they  resolve  themselves  into  conditions  of 
childish  illiterateness,  and  want  of  education  in  the 
most  ordinary  habits  of  thought.  It  is,  I  repeat,  not 
vice,  not  selfishness,  not  dulness  of  brain,  which  we  have 
to  lament ;  but  an  unreachable  schoolboy's  recklessness, 
only  differing  from  the  true  schoolboy's  in  its  incapacity 
of  being  helped,  because  it  acknowledges  no  master. 

41.  There  is  a  curious  type  of  us  given  in  one  of  the 
lovely,  neglected  works  of  the  last  of  our  great  painters. 
It  is  a  drawing  of  Kirkby  Lonsdale  churchyard,  and  of 
its  brook,  and  valley,  and  hills,  and  folded  morning  sky 
beyond.  And  unmindful  alike  of  these,  and  of  the 
dead  who  have  left  these  for  other  valleys  and  for  other 
skies,  a  group  of  schoolboys  have  piled  their  little 
books  upon  a  grave,  to  strike  them  off  with  stones. 
So,  also,  we  play  with  the  words  of  the  dead  that 
would  teach  us,  and  strike  them  far  from  us  with  our 
bitter,  reckless  will ;  little  thinking  that  those  leaves 
which  the  wind  scatters  had  been  piled,  not  only  upon 
a  gravestone,  but  upon  the  seal  of  an  enchanted  vault 
• — nay,  the  gate  of  a  great  city  of  sleeping  kings,  who 
would  awake  for  us,  and  walk  with  us,  if  we  knew  but 
how  to  call  them  by  their  names.     How  often,  even  if 


70  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

we  lift  the  marble  entrance  gate,  do  we  but  wander 
among  those  old  kings  in  their  repose,  and  finger  the 
robes  they  lie  in,  and  stir  the  crowns  on  their  foreheads ; 
and  still  they  are  silent  to  us,  and  seem  but  a  dusty 
imagery ;  because  we  know  not  the  incantation  of  the 
heart  that  would  wake  them  ; — which,  if  they  once 
heard,  they  would  start  up  to  meet  us  in  their  power 
of  long  ago,  narrowly  to  look  upon  us,  and  consider  us ; 
and,  as  the  fallen  kings  of  Hades  meet  the  newly  fallen, 
saying,  "Art  thou  also  become  weak  as  we — art  thou 
also  become  one  of  us  ?  "  so  would  these  kings,  with 
their  undimmed,  unshaken  diadems,  meet  us,  saying, 
"  Art  thou  also  become  pure  and  mighty  of  heart  as 
we  ?   art  thou  also  become  one  of  us  ?  " 

42.  Mighty  of  heart,  mighty  of  mind — "  magnanimous" 
— to  be  this,  is  indeed  to  be  great  in  life ;  to  become 
this  increasingly,  is,  indeed,  to  "advance  in  life," — in 
life  itself — not  in  the  trappings  of  it.  My  friends,  do 
you  remember  that  old  Scythian  custom,  when  the  head 
of  a  house  died?  How  he  was  dressed  in  his  finest 
dress,  and  set  in  his  chariot,  and  carried  about  to  his 
friends'  houses  ;  and  each  of  them  placed  him  at  his 
table's  head,  and  all  feasted  in  his  presence  ?  Suppose 
it  were  offered  to  you,  in  plain  words,  as  it  is  offered  to 


OF  KINGS    TREASURIES.  ti 

you  in  dire  facts,  that  you  should  gain  this  Scythian 
honour,  gradually,  while  you  yet  thought  yourself  alive. 
Suppose  the  offer  -were  this  :  You  shall  die  slowly ; 
your  blood  shall  daily  grow  cold,  your  flesh  petrify,  your 
heart  beat  at  last  only  as  a  rusted  group  of  iron  valves. 
Tour  life  shall  fade  from  you,  and  sink  through  the 
earth  into  the  ice  of  Caina ;  but,  day  by  day,  your  body 
shall  be  dressed  more  gaily,  and  set  in  higher  chariots, 
and  have  more  orders  on  its  breast — crowns  on  its 
head,  if  you  will.  Men  shall  bow  before  it,  stare  and 
shout  round  it,  crowd  after  it  up  and  down  the  streets ; 
build  palaces  for  it,  feast  with  it  at  their  tables'  heads 
all  the  night  long  ;  your  soul  shall  stay  enough  within 
it  to  know  what  they  do,  and  feel  the  weight  of  the 
golden  dress  on  its  shoulders,  and  the  furrow  of  the 
crown-edge  on  the  skull ; — no  more.  Would  you  take 
the  offer,  verbally  made  by  the  death-angel  ?  Would 
the  meanest  among  us  take  it,  think  you?  Yet  prac- 
tically and  verily  we  grasp  at  it,  every  one  of  us,  in  a 
measure ;  many  of  us  grasp  at  it  in  its  fulness  of  horror. 
Every  man  accepts  it,  who  desires  to  advance  in  life 
without  knowing  what  life  is  ;  who  means  only  that  he 
is  to  get  more  horses,  and  more  footmen,  and  more  for- 
tune, and  more  public  honour,  and — not  more  personal 


72  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

soul.  He  only  is  advancing  in  life,  whose  heart  is  getting 
softer,  whose  blood  warmer,  whose  brain  quicker,  whose 
spirit  is  entering  into  Living*  peace.  And  the  men  who 
have  this  life  in  them  are  the  true  lords  or  kings  of  the 
earth — they,  and  they  only.  All  other  kingships,  so  far 
as  they  are  true,  are  only  the  practical  issue  and  expres- 
sion of  theirs  ;  if  less  than  this,  they  are  either  dramatic 
royalties, — costly  shows,  set  off,  indeed,  with  real  jewels 
instead  of  tinsel — but  still  only  the  toys  of  nations ;  or 
else,  they  are  no  royalties  at  all,  but  tyrannies,  or  the  mere 
active  and  practical  issue  of  national  folly ;  for  which 
reason  I  have  said  of  them  elsewhere,  "  Visible  govern- 
ments are  the  toys  of  some  nations,  the  diseases  of 
others,  the  harness  of  some,  the  burdens  of  more." 

43.  But  I  have  no  words  for  the  wonder  with  which  I 
hear  Kinghood  still  spoken  of,  even  among  thoughtful 
men,  as  if  governed  nations  were  a  personal  property, 
and  might  be  bought  and  sold,  or  otherwise  acquired, 
as  sheep,  of  whose  flesh  their  king  was  to  feed,  and 
whose  fleece  he  was  to  gather ;  as  if  Achilles'  indignant 
epithet  of  base  kings,  "people-eating,"  were  the  con- 
stant and  proper  title  of  all  monarchs ;  and  enlarge- 
ment of  a  king's  dominion  meant  the  same  thing  as  the 
*  "  to  de  <pp6v)/jua  xov  Ttvev/xaroi  ^oor)  xai  eipt}vy." 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  73 

increase  of  a  private  man's  estate  !  Kings  who  think 
so,  however  powerful,  can  no  more  be  the  true  kings  of 
the  nation  than  gad-flies  are  the  kings  of  a  horse  ;  they 
suck  it,  and  may  drive  it  wild,  but  do  not  guide  it. 
They,  and  their  courts,  and  their  armies  are,  if  one 
could  see  clearly,  only  a  large  species  of  marsh  mos- 
quito, with  bayonet  proboscis  and  melodious,  band- 
mastered,  trumpeting  in  the  summer  air ;  the  twilight 
being,  perhaps,  sometimes  fairer,  but  hardly  more  whole- 
some, for  its  glittering  mists  of  midge  companies.  The 
true  kings,  meanwhile,  rule  quietly,  if  at  all,  and  hate 
ruling ;  too  many  of  them  make  "  il  gran  refiuto  ; "  and 
if  they  do  not,  the  mob,  as  soon  as  they  are  likely  to 
become  useful  to  it,  is  pretty  sure  to  make  its  "  gran 
refiuto  "  of  them. 

4A.  Yet  the  visible  king  may  also  be  a  true  one,  some 
day,  if  ever  day  comes  when  he  will  estimate  his  do- 
minion by  the  force  of  it, — not  the  geographical  boun- 
daries. It  matters  very  little  whether  Trent  cuts  you  a 
cantel  out  here,  or  Rhine  rounds  you  a  castle  less  there. 
But  it  does  matter  to  you,  king  of  men,  whether  you 
can  verily  say  to  this  man,  "  Go,"  and  he  goeth  ;  and  to 
another,  "Come,"  and  he  cometh.  Whether  you  can 
turn  your  people,  as  you  can  Trent — and  where  it  is 


74  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

that  you  bid  them  come,  and  where  go.  It  matters  to 
you,  king  of  men,  whether  your  people  hate  you,  and 
die  by  you,  or  love  you,  and  live  by  you.  You  may 
measure  your  dominion  by  multitudes  better  than  by 
miles  ;  and  count  degrees  of  love  latitude,  not  from,  but 
to,  a  wonderfully  warm  and  infinite  equator. 

45.  Measure !  nay  you  cannot  measure.  Who  shall 
measure  the  difference  between  the  power  of  those  who 
"  do  and  teach,"  and  who  are  greatest  in  the  kingdoms  of 
earth,  as  of  heaven — and  the  power  of  those  who  undo, 
and  consume — whose  power,  at  the  fullest,  is  only  the 
power  of  the  moth  and  the  rust  ?  Strange  !  to  think  how 
the  Moth-kings  lay  up  treasures  for  the  moth  ;  and  the 
Rust-kings,  who  are  to  their  peoples'  strength  as  rust  to 
armour,  lay  up  treasures  for  the  rust ;  and  the  Robber- 
kings,  treasures  for  the  robber;  but  how  few  kings  have 
ever  laid  up  treasures  that  needed  no  guarding — treas- 
ures of  which,  the  more  thieves  there  were,  the  better  ! 
Broidered  robe,  only  to  be  rent ;  helm  and  sword,  only 
to  be  dimmed  ;  jewel  and  gold,  only  to  be  scattered ; — 
there  have  been  three  kinds  of  kings  who  have  gathered 
these.  Suppose  there  ever  should  arise  a  Fourth  order 
of  kings,  who  had  read,  in  some  obscure  writing  of  long 
ago,  that  there  was  a  Fourth  kind  of  treasure,  which 


of  king's  treasuries.  75 

the  jewel  and  gold  could  not  equal,  neither  should  it 
be  valued  with  pure  gold.  A  web  made  fair  in  the  weav- 
ing, by  Athena's  shuttle  ;  an  armour,  forged  in  divine 
fire  by  Yulcanian  force — a  gold  to  be  mined  in  the  sun's 
red  heart,  where  he  sets  over  the  Delphian  cliffs ; 
— deep-pictured  tissue,  impenetrable  armour,  potable 
gold  ! — the  three  great  Angels  of  Conduct,  Toil,  and 
Thought,  still  calling  to  us,  and  waiting  at  the  posts 
of  our  doors,  to  lead  us,  with  their  winged  power, 
and  guide  us,  with  their  unerring  eyes,  by  the  path 
which  no  fowl  knoweth,  and  which  the  vulture's 
eye  has  not  seen!  Suppose  kings  should  ever  arise, 
who  heard  and  believed  this  word  and  at  last  gathered 
and  brought  forth  treasures  of — Wisdom— for  their 
people  ? 

46.  Think  what  an  amazing  business  that  would  be  ! 
How  inconceivable,  in  the  state  of  our  present  national 
wisdom !  That  we  should  bring  up  our  peasants  to  a  book 
exercise  instead  of  a  bayonet  exercise  ! — organize,  drill, 
maintain  with  pay,  and  good  generalship,  armies  of 
thinkers,  instead  of  armies  of  stabbers  ! — find  national 
amusement  in  reading-rooms  as  well  as  rifle-grounds; 
give  prizes  for  a  fair  shot  at  a  fact,  as  well  as  for  a 
leaden  splash  on  a  target.     What  an  absurd  idea  it 


76  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

seems,  put  fairly  in  words,  that  the  wealth  of  the  capi- 
talists of  civilized  nations  should  ever  come  to  support 
literature  instead  of  war  ! 

47.  Have  yet  patience  with  me,  while  I  read  you  a  single 
sentence  out  of  the  only  book,  properly  to  be  called  a  book, 
that  I  have  yet  written  myself,  the  one  that  will  stand, 
(if  anything  stand,)  surest  and  longest  of  all  work  of  mine. 

"  It  is  one  very  awful  form  of  the  operation  of  wealth  in 
Europe  that  it  is  entirely  capitalists'  wealth  which  supports 
unjust  wars.  Just  wars  do  not  need  so  much  money  to  sup- 
port them  ;  for  most  of  the  men  who  wage  such,  wage  them 
gratis ;  but  for  an  unjust  war,  men's  bodies  and  souls  have 
both  to  be  bought;  and  the  best  tools  of  war  for  them  be- 
sides, which  makes  such  war  costly  to  the  maximum  ;  not  to 
speak  of  the  cost  of  base  fear,  and  angry  suspicion,  between 
nations  which  have  not  grace  nor  honesty  enough  in  all  their 
multitudes  to  buy  an  hour's  peace  of  mind  with  ;  as,  at  pres- 
ent France  and  England,  purchasing  of  each  other  ten  mil- 
lions' sterling  worth  of  consternation,  annually  (a  remarkably 
light  crop,  half  thorns  and  half  aspen  leaves,  sown,  reaped, 
and  granaried  by  the  ' science '  of  the  modern  political  econo- 
mist, teaching  covetousness  instead  of  truth).  And,  all  un- 
just war  being  supportable,  if  not  by  pillage  of  the  enemy, 
only  by  loans  from  capitalists,  these  loans  are  repaid  by  sub- 
sequent taxation  of  the  people,  who  appear  to  have  no  will  in 
the  matter,  the  capitalists'  will  being  the  primary  root  of  the 
war  ;  but  its  real  root  is  the  covetousness  of  the  whole  nation, 


OF  kings'  teeasuries.  77 

rendering  it  incapable  of  faith,  frankness,  or  justice,  and 
bringing  about,  therefore,  in  due  time,  his  own  separate  loss 
and  punishment  to  each  person." 

48.  France  and  England  literally,  observe,  buy  panic  o£ 
each  other ;  they  pay,  each  of  them,  for  ten  thousand- 
thousand-pounds'-worth  of  terror,  a  year.  Now  sup- 
pose, instead  of  buying  these  ten  millions'  worth  of 
panic  annually,  they  made  up  their  minds  to  be  at  peace 
with  each  other,  and  buy  ten  millions'  worth  of  knowl- 
edge annually  ;  and  that  each  nation  spent  its  ten  thou- 
sand thousand  pounds  a  year  in  founding  royal  libraries, 
royal  art  galleries,  royal  museums,  royal  gardens,  and 
places  of  rest.  Might  it  not  be  better  somewhat  for 
both  French  and  English  ? 

49.  It  will  be  long,  yet,  before  that  comes  to  pass.  Nev- 
ertheless, I  hope  it  will  not  be  long  before  royal  or  na- 
tional libraries  will  be  founded  in  every  considerable  city, 
with  a  royal  series  of  books  in  them  ;  the  same  series  in 
every  one  of  them,  chosen  books,  the  best  in  every  kind, 
prepared  for  that  national  series  in  the  most  perfect 
way  possible ;  their  text  printed  all  on  leaves  of  equal 
size,  broad  of  margin,  and  divided  into  pleasant  volumes, 
light  in  the  hand,  beautiful,  and  strong,  and  thorough 
as  examples  of  binders'  work ;  and  that  these  great  li- 


78  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

braries  will  be  accessible  to  all  clean  and  orderly  per- 
sons at  all  times  of  the  day  and  evening ;  strict  law- 
being  enforced  for  this  cleanliness  and  quietness. 

I  could  shape  for  you  other  plans,  for  art-galleries, 
and  for  natural  history  galleries,  and  for  many  precious 
—many,  it  seems  to  me,  needful — things  ;  but  this  book 
plan  is  the  easiest  and  needfullest,  and  would  prove  a 
considerable  tonic  to  what  we  call  our  British  constitu- 
tion, which  has  fallen  dropsical  of  late,  and  has  an  evil 
thirst,  and  evil  hunger,  and  wants  healthier  feeding. 
You  have  got  its  corn  laws  repealed  for  it ;  try  if  you 
cannot  get  corn  laws  established  for  it,  dealing  in  a  bet- 
ter bread  ; — bread  made  of  that  old  enchanted  Arabian 
grain,  the  Sesame,  which  opens  doors  ; — doors,  not  of 
robbers',  but  of  Kings'  Treasuries. 

50.  Note  to  1  30. — Kespecting  the  increase  of  rent  by 
the  deaths  of  the  poor,  for  evidence  of  which,  see  the 
preface  to  the  Medical  officer's  report  to  the  Privy 
Council,  just  published,  there  are  suggestions  in  its 
preface  which  will  make  some  stir  among  us,  I  fancy, 
respecting  which  let  me  note  these  points  following : — 

There  are  two  theories  on  the  subject  of  land  now 
abroad,  and  in  contention ;  both  false. 

The  first  is  that,  by  Heavenly  law,  there  have  always 


OF  kings'  treasuries.  79 

existed,  and  must  continue  to  exist,  a  certain  number  of 
hereditarily  sacred  persons  to  whom  the  earth,  air,  and 
water  of  the  world  belong,  as  personal  property ;  of  which 
earth,  air,  and  water,  these  persons  may,  at  their  pleas- 
ure, permit,  or  forbid,  the  rest  of  the  human  race  to  eat, 
breathe,  or  to  drink.  This  theory  is  not  for  many  years 
longer  tenable.  The  adverse  theory  is  that  a  division 
of  the  land  of  the  world  among  the  mob  of  the  world 
would  immediately  elevate  the  said  mob  into  sacred 
personages ;  that  houses  would  then  build  themselves, 
and  corn  grow  of  itself ;  and  that  everybody  would  be 
able  to  live,  without  doing  any  work  for  his  living. 
This  theory  would  also  be  found  highly  untenable  in 
practice. 

It  will,  however,  require  some  rough  experiments, 
and  rougher  catastrophes,  before  the  generality  of  per- 
sons will  be  convinced  that  no  law  concerning  any- 
thing, least  of  all  concerning  land,  for  either  holding  or 
dividing  it,  or  renting  it  high,  or  renting  it  low — would 
be  of  the  smallest  ultimate  use  to  the  people — so 
long  as  the  general  contest  for  life,  and  for  the  means 
of  life,  remains  one  of  mere  brutal  competition.  That 
contest,  in  an  unprincipled  nation,  will  take  one  deadly 
form  or  another,  whatever  laws  you  make  against  it. 


80  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

For  instance,  it  would  be  an  entirely  wholesome  law  for 
England,  if  it  could  be  carried,  that  maximum  limits 
should  be  assigned  to  incomes  according  to  classes  ;  and 
that  every  nobleman's  income  should  be  paid  to  him  as 
a  fixed  salary  or  pension  by  the  nation ;  and  not 
squeezed  by  him  in  variable  sums,  at  discretion,  out  of 
the  tenants  of  his  land.  But  if  you  could  get  such  a 
law  passed  to-morrow,  and  if,  which  would  be  farther 
necessary,  you  could  fix  the  value  of  the  assigned  in- 
comes by  making  a  given  weight  of  pure  bread  for  a 
given  sum,  a  twelve-month  would  not  pass  before  an- 
other currency  would  have  been  tacitly  established,  and 
the  power  of  accumulative  wealth  would  have  re-asserted 
itself  in  some  other  article,  or  some  other  imaginary 
sign.  There  is  only  one  cure  for  public  distress — and 
that  is  public  education,  directed  to  make  men  thought- 
ful, merciful,  and  just.  There  are,  indeed,  many  laws 
conceivable  which  would  gradually  better  and  strengthen 
the  national  temper ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  they  are 
such  as  the  national  temper  must  be  much  bettered  be- 
fore it  would  bear.  A  nation  in  its  youth  may  be  helped 
by  laws,  as  a  weak  child  by  backboards,  but  when  it  is 
old  it  cannot  that  way  straighten  its  crooked  spine. 
And  besides ;  the  problem  of  land,  at  its  worst,  is  a 


OF  KINGS    TREASURIES.  81 

bye  one ;  distribute  the  earth  as  you  will,  the  principal 
question  remains  inexorable, — "Who  is  to  dig  it  ?  "Which 
of  us,  in  brief  words,  is  to  do  the  hard  and  dirty  work  for 
the  rest — and  for  what  pay  ?  Who  is  to  do  the  pleasant 
and  clean  work,  and  for  what  pay  ?  Who  is  to  do  no  work, 
and  for  what  pay  ?  And  there  are  curious  moral  and 
religious  questions  connected  with  these.  How  far  is 
it  lawful  to  suck  a  portion  of  the  soul  out  of  a  great 
many  persons,  in  order  to  put  the  abstracted  psychical 
quantities  together  and  make  one  very  beautiful  or  ideal 
soul?  If  we  had  to  deal  with  mere  blood,  instead  of 
spirit,  (and  the  thing  might  literally  be  done — as  it  has 
been  done  with  infants  before  now) — so  that  it  were 
possible  by  taking  a  certain  quantity  of  blood  from  the 
arms  of  a  given  number  of  the  mob,  and  putting  it  all 
into  one  person,  to  make  a  more  azure-blooded  gentle- 
man of  him,  the  thing  would  of  course  be  managed  ;  but 
secretly,  I  should  conceive.  But  now,  because  it  is 
brain  and  soul  that  we  abstract,  not  visible  blood,  it 
can  be  done  quite  openly,  and  we  live,  we  gentlemen,  on 
delicatest  prey,  after  the  manner  of  weasels ;  that  is  to 
say,  we  keep  a  certain  number  of  clowns  digging  and 
ditching,  and  generally  stupefied,  in  order  that  we, 
being  fed  gratis,  may  have  all  the  thinking  and  feeling 


82  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

to  ourselves.  Yet  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for 
this.  A  highly-bred  and  trained  English,  French,  Aus- 
trian, or  Italian  gentleman  (much  more  a  lady),  is  a 
great  production, — a  better  production  than  most 
statues  ;  being  beautifully  coloured  as  well  as  shaped, 
and  plus  all  the  brains ;  a  glorious  thing  to  look  at,  a 
wonderful  thing  to  talk  to ;  and  you  cannot  have  it,  any 
more  than  a  pyramid  or  a  church,  but  by  sacrifice  of 
much  contributed  life.  And  it  is,  perhaps,  better  to 
build  a  beautiful  human  creature  than  a  beautiful  dome 
or  steeple — and  more  delightful  to  look  up  reverently 
to  a  creature  far  above  us,  than  to  a  wall;  only  the 
beautiful  human  creature  will  have  some  duties  to  do  in 
return — duties  of  living  belfry  and  rampart — of  which 
presently. 


LECTURE   II.— LILIES. 

OP  queens'  gardens. 

"Be  thou  glad,  oh  thirsting  Desert;  let  the  desert  be  made  cheerful, 
and  bloom  as  the  lily;  and  the  barren  places  of  Jordan  shall  run  wild 
with  wood." — Isaiah  35,  i.    (Scptuagint .) 

51.  It  will,  perhaps,  be  well,  as  this  Lecture  is  the  sequel 
of  one  previously  given,  that  I  should  shortly  state  to 
you  my  general  intention  in  both.  The  questions  spe- 
cially proposed  to  you  in  the  first,  namely,  How  and  What 
to  Read,  rose  out  of  a  far  deeper  one,  which  it  was  my 
endeavour  to  make  you  propose  earnestly  to  yourselves, 
namely,  Why  to  Read.  I  want  you  to  feel,  with  me, 
that  whatever  advantages  we  possess  in  the  present  day 
in  the  diffusion  of  education  and  of  literature,  can  only 
be  rightly  used  by  any  of  us  when  we  have  apprehended 
clearly  what  education  is  to  lead  to,  and  literature  to 
teach.  I  wish  you  to  see  that  both  well-directed  moral 
training  and  well-chosen  reading  lead  to  the  possession 
of  a  power  over  the  ill-guided  and  illiterate,  which  is, 
according  to  the  measure  of  it,  in  the  truest  sense, 
kingly;  conferring  indeed  the  purest  kingship  that  can 

exist  among  men  :  too  many  other  kingships  (however 

83 


84  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

distinguished  by  visible  insignia  or  material  power) 
being  either  spectral,  or  tyrannous  ; — Spectral — that  is 
to  say,  aspects  and  shadows  only  of  royalty,  hollow  as 
death,  and  which  only  the  "  Likeness  of  a  kingly  crown 
have  on;"  or  else  tyrannous — that  is  to  say,  substi- 
tuting their  own  will  for  the  law  of  justice  and  love  by 
which  all  true  kings  rule. 

52.  There  is,  then,  I  repeat — and  as  I  want  to  leave  this 
idea  with  you,  I  begin  with  it,  and  shall  end  with  it — 
only  one  pure  kind  of  kingship  ;  an  inevitable  and  eter- 
nal kind,  crowned  or  not :  the  kingship,  namely,  which 
consists  in  a  stronger  moral  state,  and  a  truer  thoughtful 
state,  than  that  of  others  ;  enabling  you,  therefore,  to 
guide,  or  to  raise  them.  Observe  that  word  "  State  ;  " 
we  have  got  into  a  loose  way  of  using  it.  It  means  lit- 
erally the  standing  and  stability  of  a  thing;  and  you 
have  the  full  force  of  it  in  the  derived  word  "  statue  " — 
"  the  immoveable  thing."  A  king's  majesty  or  "  state," 
then,  and  the  right  of  his  kingdom  to  be  called  a  state, 
depends  on  the  movelessness  of  both  : — without  tremor, 
without  quiver  of  balance ;  established  and  enthroned 
upon  a  foundation  of  eternal  law  which  nothing  can 
alter,  nor  overthrow. 

53.  Believinar  that  all  literature  and  all  education  are 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  85 

only  useful  so  far  as  they  tend  to  confirm  this  calm, 
beneficent,  and  therefore  kingly,  power — first,  oyer  our- 
selves, and,  through  ourselves,  over  all  around  us,  I  am 
now  going  to  ask  you  to  consider  with  me  farther,  what 
special  portion  or  kind  of  this  royal  authority,  arising 
out  of  noble  education,  may  rightly  be  possessed  by 
women;  and  how  far  they  also  are  called  to  a  true 
queenly  power.  Not  in  their  households  merely,  but 
over  all  within  their  sphere.  And  in  what  sense,  if 
they  rightly  understood  and  exercised  this  royal  or  gra- 
cious influence,  the  order  and  beauty  induced  by  such 
benignant  power  would  justify  us  in  speaking  of  the 
territories  over  which  each  of  them  reigned,  as  "  Queens' 
Gardens." 

54.  And  here,  in  the  very  outset,  we  are  met  by  a  far 
deeper  question,  which — strange  though  this  may  seem 
— remains  among  many  of  us  yet  quite  undecided,  in 
spite  of  its  infinite  importance. 

We  cannot  determine  what  the  queenly  power  of 
women  should  be,  until  we  are  agreed  what  their  ordi- 
nary power  should  be.  We  cannot  consider  how  educa- 
tion may  fit  them  for  any  widely  extending  duty,  until 
we  are  agreed  what  is  their  true  constant  duty.  And 
there  never  was  a  time  when  wilder  words  were  spoken, 


86  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

or  more  vain  imagination  permitted,  respecting  this 
question — quite  vital  to  all  social  happiness.  The  rela- 
tions of  the  womanly  to  the  manly  nature,  their  different 
capacities  of  intellect  or  of  virtue,  seem  never  to  have 
been  yet  estimated  with  entire  consent.  We  hear  of  the 
"mission"  and  of  the  "rights"  of  Woman,  as  if  these 
could  ever  be  separate  from  the  mission  and  the  rights 
of  Man ;— as  if  she  and  her  lord  were  creatures  of  inde- 
pendent kiud,  and  of  irreconcileable  claim.  This,  at 
least,  is  wrong.  And  not  less  wrong — perhaps  even 
more  foolishly  wrong  (for  I  will  anticipate  thus  far  what 
I  hope  to  prove) — is  the  idea  that  woman  is  only  the 
shadow  and  attendant  image  of  her  lord,  owing  him  a 
thoughtless  and  servile  obedience,  and  supported  alto- 
gether in  her  weakness,  by  the  pre-eminence  of  his 
fortitude. 

This,  I  say,  is  the  most  foolish  of  all  errors  respecting 
her  who  was  made  to  be  the  helpmate  of  man.  As  if  he 
could  be  helped  effectively  by  a  shadow,  or  worthily  by 
a  slave ! 

55.  Let  us  try,  then,  whether  we  cannot  get  at  some  clear 
and  harmonious  idea  (it  must  be  harmonious  if  it  is  true) 
of  what  womanly  mind  and  virtue  are  in  power  and 
office,  with  respect  to  man's  ;  and  how  their  relations, 


or  queens'  gabdexs.  87 

rightly  accepted,  aid,  and  increase,  the  vigour,  and 
honour,  and  authority  of  both. 

And  now  I  must  repeat  one  thing  I  said  in  the  last 
lecture :  namely,  that  the  first  use  of  education  was  to 
enable  us  to  consult  with  the  wisest  and  the  greatest  men 
on  all  points  of  earnest  difficulty.  That  to  use  books 
rightly,  was  to  go  to  them  for  help  :  to  appeal  to  them, 
when  our  own  knowledge  and  power  of  thought  failed : 
to  be  led  by  them  into  wider  sight, — purer  conception — 
than  our  own,  and  receive  from  them  the  united  sen- 
tence of  the  judges  and  councils  of  all  time,  against  our 
solitary  and  unstable  opinion. 

Let  us  do  this  now.  Let  us  see  whether  the  greatest, 
the  wisest,  the  purest-hearted  of  all  ages  are  agreed  in 
any  wise  on  this  point  :  let  us  hear  the  testimony  they 
have  left  respecting  what  they  held  to  be  the  true  dig- 
nity of  woman,  and  her  mode  of  help  to  man. 

56.  And  first  let  us  take  Shakespeare. 

Note  broadly  in  the  outset,  Shakespeare  has  no  he- 
roes • — he  has  only  heroines.  There  is  not  one  entirely 
heroic  figure  in  all  his  plays,  except  the  slight  sketch  of 
Henry  the  Fifth,  exaggerated  for  the  purposes  of  the 
stage  ;  and  the  still  slighter  Valentine  in  The  Two 
Gentlemen   of  Yerona.     In  his   laboured  and   perfect 


88  SESAME  AND   LILIES, 

plays  you  have  no  hero.  Othello  would  have  beon  one, 
if  his  simplicity  had  not  been  so  great  as  to  leave  him 
the  prey  of  every  base  practice  round  him ;  but  he  is 
the  only  example  even  approximating  to  the  heroic  type. 
Coriolanus — Caesar — Antony,  stand  in  flawed  strength, 
and  fall  by  their  vanities  ; — Hamlet  is  indolent,  and 
drowsily  speculative  ;  Eomeo  an  impatient  boy  ;  the 
Merchant  of  Venice  languidly  submissive  to  adverse  for- 
tune ;  Kent,  in  King  Lear,  is  entirely  noble  at  heart, 
but  too  rough  and  unpolished  to  be  of  true  use  at  the 
critical  time,  and  he  sinks  into  the  office  of  a  servant 
only.  Orlando,  no  less  noble,  is  yet  the  despairing  toy 
of  chance,  followed,  comforted,  saved,  by  Rosalind. 
"Whereas  there  is  hardly  a  play  that  has  not  a  perfect 
woman  in  it,  steadfast  in  grave  hope,  and  errorless  pur- 
pose :  Cordelia,  Desdemona,  Isabella,  Hermione,  Imo- 
gen, Queen  Katherine,  Perdita,  Sylvia,  Viola,  Rosalind, 
Helena,  and  last,  and  perhaps  loveliest,  Virgilia,  are  all 
faultless  :  conceived  in  the  highest  heroic  type  of  hu- 
manity. 

57.  Then  observe,  secondly, 

The  catastrophe  of  every  play  is  caused  always  "by 
the  folly  or  fault  of  a  man  ;  the  redemption,  if  there  be 
any,  is  by  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of  a  woman,  and  fail- 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  89 

ing  that,  there  is  none.  The  catastrophe  of  King  Lear 
is  owing  to  his  own  want  of  judgment,  his  impatient 
vanity,  his  misunderstanding  of  his  children  ;  the  virtue 
of  his  one  true  daughter  would  have  saved  him  from  all 
the  injuries  of  the  others,  unless  he  had  cast  her  away 
from  him  ;  as  it  is,  she  all  but  saves  him. 

Of  Othello  I  need  not  trace  the  tale  ; — nor  the  one 
weakness  of  his  so  mighty  love  ;  nor  the  inferiority  of 
his  perceptive  intellect  to  that  even  of  the  second 
woman  character  in  the  play,  the  Emilia  who  dies  in  wild 
testimony  against  his  error  : — "  Oh,  murderous  coxcomb ! 
What  should  such  a  fool  Do  with  so  good  a  wife?  " 

In  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  wise  and  brave  strata- 
gem of  the  wife  is  brought  to  ruinous  issue  by  the 
reckless  impatience  of  her  husband.  In  "Winter's  Tale 
and  in  Cymbeline,  the  happiness  and  existence  of  two 
princely  households,  lost  through  long  years,  and  im- 
perilled to  the  death  by  the  folly  and  obstinacy  of  the 
husbands,  and  redeemed  at  last  by  the  queenly  patience 
and  wisdom  of  the  wives.  In  Measure  for  Measure,  the 
foul  injustice  of  the  judge,  and  the  foul  cowardice  of  the 
brother,  are  opposed  to  the  victorious  truth  and  ada- 
mantine purity  of  a  woman.  In  Coriolanus,  the  mother's 
counsel,  acted  upon  in  time,  would  have  saved  her  son 
from  all  evil ;  his  momentary  forgetfulness  of  it  is  his 


90  SESAME  AND  LTLTEg. 

ruin  ;  lier  prayer  at  last  granted,  saves  him — not,  indeed, 
from  death,  but  from  the  curse  of  living  as  the  destroyer 
of  his  country. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  Julia,  constant  against  the 
fickleness  of  a  lover  who  is  a  mere  wicked  child  ? — of 
Helena,  against  the  petulance  and  insult  of  a  careless 
youth? — of  the  patience  of  Hero,  the  passion  of  Bea- 
trice, and  the  calmly  devoted  wisdom  of  the  "  unlessoned 
girl,"  who  appears  among  the  helplessness,  the  blind- 
ness, and  the  vindictive  passions  of  men,  as  a  gentle 
angel,  bringing  courage  and  safety  by  her  presence,  and 
defeating  the  worst  malignities  of  crime  by  what  women 
are  fancied  most  to  fail  in, — precision  and  accuracy  of 
thought. 

58.  Observe,  further,  among  all  the  principal  figures  in 
Shakespeare's  plays,  there  is  only  one  weak  woman — 
Ophelia ;  and  it  is  because  she  fails  Hamlet  at  the  crit- 
ical moment,  and  is  not,  and  cannot  in  her  nature  be,  a 
guide  to  him  when  he  needs  her  most,  that  all  the  bitter 
catastrophe  follows.  Finally,  though  there  are  three 
wicked  women  among  the  principal  figures,  Lady 
Macbeth,  Regan,  and  Goneril,  they  are  felt  at  once  to  be 
frightful  exceptions  to  the  ordinary  laws  of  life  ;  fatal  in 
their  influence  also  in  proportion  to  the  power  for  good 
which  they  have  abandoned. 


or  queens'   GARDENS.  !'l 

Such,  in  broad  light,  is  Shakespeare's  testimony  to 
the  position  and  character  of  women  in  human  life.  He 
represents  them  as  infallibly  faithful  and  wise  counsel- 
lors,— incorruptibly  just  and  pure  examples — strong 
always  to  sanctify,  even  when  they  cannot  save. 

59.  Not  as  in  any  wise  comparable  in  knowledge  of  the 
nature  of  man, — still  less  in  his  understanding  of  the 
causes  and  courses  of  fate, — but  only  as  the  writer  who 
has  given  us  the  broadest  view  of  the  conditions  and 
modes  of  ordinary  thought  in  modern  society,  I  ask  you 
next  to  receive  the  witness  of  Walter  Scott. 

I  put  aside  his  merely  romantic  prose  writings  as  of 
no  value  :  and  though  the  early  romantic  poetry  is  very 
beautiful,  its  testimony  is  of  no  weight,  other  than  that 
of  a  boy's  ideal.  But  his  true  works,  studied  from 
Scottish  life,  bear  a  true  witness  ;  and,  in  the  whole  range 
of  these,  there  are  but  three  men  who  reach  the  heroic 
type" — Dandie  Dinmont,  Eob  Iioy,  and   Claverhouse  : 

*  I  ought,  in  order  to  make  this  assertion  fully  understood,  to  have 
noted  the  various  weaknesses  which  lower  the  ideal  of  other  great 
characters  of  men  in  the  Waverley  novels — the  selfishness  and  narrow- 
ness of  thought  in  Redgauntlet,  the  weak  religious  enthusiasm  in 
Edward  Glendinning,  and  the  like  ;  and  I  ought  to  have  noticed  that 
there  are  several  quite  perfect  characters  sketched  sometimes  in  the 
backgrounds;  three — let  us  accept  joyously  this  courtesy  to  England 


92  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

of  these,  one  is  a  border  farmer ;  another  a  freebooter ; 
the  third  a  soldier  in  a  bad  cause.  And  these  touch 
the  ideal  of  heroism  only  in  their  courage  and  faith, 
together  with  a  strong,  but  uncultivated,  or  mistakenly 
applied,  intellectual  power  ;  while  his  younger  men  are 
the  gentlemanly  playthings  of  fantastic  fortune,  and  only 
by  aid  (or  accident)  of  that  fortune,  survive,  not  van- 
quish, the  trials  they  involuntarily  sustain.  Of  any 
disciplined,  or  consistent  character,  earnest  in  a  purpose 
wisely  conceived,  or  dealing  with  forms  of  hostile  evil, 
definitely  challenged,  and  resolutely  subdued,  there  is  no 
trace  in  his  conceptions  of  young  men.  Whereas  in  his 
imaginations  of  women, — in  the  characters  of  Ellen 
Douglas,  of  Flora  Maclvor,  Eose  Bradwardine,  Cathe- 
rine Seyton,  Diana  Vernon,  Lilias  Eedgauntlet,  Alice 
Briclgenorth,  Alice  Lee,  and  Jeanie  Deans,— with  end- 
less varieties  of  grace,  tenderness,  and  intellectual  power 
we  find  in  all  a  quite  infallible  and  inevitable  sense 
of  dignity  and  justice  ;  a  fearless,  instant,  and  untiring 
self-sacrifice  to  even  the  appearance  of  duty,  much  more 
to  its  real  claims  ;  and,  finally,  a  patient  wisdom  of 
deeply  restrained  affection,  which  does  infinitely  more 

and  hoi-  soldiers — are  English  officers  :  Colonel  Gardiner,  Colonel  Talbot, 
and  Colonel  Mannering. 


OF  queens'  gardens.  93 

than  protect  its  objects  from  a  momentary  error;  it 
gradually  forms,  animates,  and  exalts  the  characters  of 
the  unworthy  lovers,  until,  at  the  close  of  the  tale,  we 
are  just  able,  and  no  more,  to  take  patience  in  hearing 
of  their  unmerited  success. 

So  that,  in  all  cases,  with  Scott  as  with  Shakespeare, 
it  is  the  woman  who  watches  over,  teaches,  and  guides 
the  youth ;  it  is  never,  by  any  chance,  the  youth  who 
watches  over,  or  educates  his  mistress. 

60.  Next,  take,  though  more  briefly,  graver  testimony 
— that  of  the  great  Italians  and  Greeks.  You  know 
well  the  plan  of  Dante's  great  poem — that  it  is  a 
love  poem  to  his  dead  lady ;  a  song  of  praise  for  her 
watch  over  his  soul.  Stooping  only  to  pity,  never  to 
love,  she  yet  saves  him  from  destruction — saves  him 
from  hell.  He  is  going  eternally  astray  in  despair ;  she 
comes  down  from  heaven  to  his  help,  and  throughout  the 
ascents  of  Paradise  is  his  teacher,  interpreting  for  him 
the  most  difficult  truths,  divine  and  human,  and  loading 
him,  with  rebiike  upon  rebuke,  from  star  to  star. 

I  do  not  insist  upon  Dante's  conception  ;  if  I  began  T 
could  not  cease  :  besides,  you  might  think  this  a  wild 
imagination  of  one  poet's  heart.  So  I  will  rather  read 
to  you  a  few  verses  of  the  deliberate  writing  of  a  knight 


94  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

of  Pisa  to  his  living  lady,  wholly  characteristic  of  tlie 
feeling  of  all  the  noblest  men  of  the  thirteenth,  or  early 
fourteenth  century,  preserved  among  many  other  such 
records  of  knightly  honour  and  love,  which  Dante  Eos- 
setti  has  gathered  for  us  from  among  the  early  Italian 
poets. 

"'For  lo  !  thy  law  is  passed 
That  this  my  love  should  manifestly  be 

To  serve  and  honour  thee  : 
And  so  I  do  ;   and  my  delight  is  full, 
Accepted  for  the  servant  of  thy  rule. 

"Without  almost,  I  am  all  rapturous, 
Since  thus  my  will  was  set 
To  serve,  thou  flower  of  joy,  thine  excellence  : 
Nor  ever  seems  it  anything  could  rouse 
A  pain  or  regret, 
But  on  thee  dwells  mine  every  thought  and  sense  ; 
Considering  that  from  thee  all  virtues  spread 

As  from  a  fountain  head, — 
That  in  thy  gift  is  wisdom's  best  avail, 

And  honour  without  fail; 
With  whom  each  sovereign  good  dwells  separate, 
Fulfilling  the  perfection  of  thy  state. 

"  Lady,  since  I  conceived 
Thy  pleasurable  aspect  in  my  heart, 

My  life  has  leen  apart 
In  shining  brightness  and  the  place  of  truth  ; 


95 

Which,  till  that  time,  good  sooth, 
Groped  among  shadows  in  a  darken'd  place, 

Where  many  hours  and  days 
It  hardly  ever  had  remember'd  good. 

But  now  my  servitude 
Is  thine,  and  I  am  full  of  joy  and  rest. 

A  man  from  a  wild  beast 
Thou  madest  me,  since  for  thy  love  I  lived. 

61.  You  may  think,  perhaps,  a  Greek  knight  would 
have  had  a  lower  estimate  of  women  than  this  Christian 
lover.  His  spiritual  subjection  to  them  was  indeed  not  so 
absolute  ;  but  as  regards  their  own  personal  character, 
it  was  only  because  you  could  not  have  followed  me  so 
easily,  that  I  did  not  take  the  Greek  women  instead  of 
Shakespeare's  ;  and  instance,  for  chief  ideal  types  of 
human  beauty  and  faith,  the  simple  mother's  and  wife's 
heart  of  Andromache;  the  divine,  yet  rejected  wisdom 
of  Cassandra  ;  the  playful  kindness  and  simple  princess- 
life  of  happy  Nausicaa ;  the  housewifely  calm  of  that  ot 
Penelope,  with  its  watch  upon  the  sea  ;  the  ever  patient, 
fearless,  hopelessly  devoted  piety  of  the  sister,  and 
daughter,  in  Antigone  ;  the  bowing  down  of  Iphigcnia, 
lamb-like  and  silent ;  and,  finally,  the  expectation  of 
the  resurrection,  made  clear  to  the  soul  of  the  Greeks 
in  the  return  from  her  grave  of  that  Alcestis,  who,  to 


96  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

save  her  husband,  had  passed  calmly  through  the  bit- 
terness of  death. 

62.  Now  I  could  multiply  witness  upon  witness  of  this 
kind  upon  you  if  I  had  time.  I  would  take  Chaucer, 
and  show  you  why  he  wrote  a  Legend  of  Good  Women ; 
but  no  Legend  of  Good  Men.  I  would  take  Spenser, 
and  show  you  how  all  his  fairy  knights  are  sometimes 
deceived  and  sometimes  vanquished ;  but  the  soul  of 
Una  is  never  darkened,  and  the  spear  of  Britomart  is 
never  broken.  Nay,  I  could  go  back  into  the  mythical 
teaching  of  the  most  ancient  times,  and  show  you  how 
the  great  people, — by  one  of  whose  princesses  it  was 
appointed  that  the  Lawgiver  of  all  the  earth  should  be 
educated,  rather  than  by  his  own  kindred  ; — how  that 
great  Egyptian  people,  wisest  then  of  nations,  gave  to 
their  Spirit  of  Wisdom  the  form  of  a  woman ;  and  into 
her  hand,  for  a  symbol,  the  weaver's  shuttle  ;  and  how  the 
name  and  the  form  of  that  spirit,  adopted,  believed,  and 
obeyed  by  the  Greeks,  became  that  Athena  of  the  olive- 
helm,  and  cloudy  shield,  to  faith  in  whom  you  owe, 
down  to  this  date,  whatever  you  hold  most  precious  in 
art,  in  literature,  or  in  types  of  national  virtue. 

63.  But  I  will  not  wander  into  this  distant  and  mythical 
element ;  I  will  only  ask  you  to  give  its  legitimate  value 
to  the  testimony  of  these  great  poets  and  men  of  the 


or  queens'  gardens.  97 

world, — consistent  as  yon  see  it  is,  on  this  head.  I  will 
ask  you  whether  it  can  be  supposed  that  these  men,  in 
the  main  work  of  their  lives,  are  amusing  themselves 
with  a  fictitious  and  idle  view  of  the  relations  between 
man  and  woman  ; — nay,  worse  than  fictitious  or  idle  ;  for 
a  thing  may  be  imaginary,  yet  desirable,  if  it  were  pos- 
sible :  but  this,  their  ideal  of  women,  is,  according  to 
our  common  idea  of  the  marriage  relation,  wholly  unde- 
sirable. The  woman,  we  say,  is  not  to  guide,  nor  even 
to  think,  for  herself.  The  man  is  always  to  be  the  wiser ; 
he  is  to  be  the  thinker,  the  ruler,  the  superior  in  knowl- 
edge and  discretion,  as  in  power. 

64  Is  it  not  somewhat  important  to  make  up  our  minds 
on  this  matter  ?  Are  all  these  great  men  mistaken,  or  are 
we?  Are  Shakespeare  and  iEschylus, Dante  and  Homer, 
merely  dressing  dolls  for  us  ;  or,  worse  than  dolls,  unnat- 
ural visions,  the  realization  of  which,  were  it  possible, 
would  bring  anarchy  into  all  households  and  ruin  into  all 
affections?  Nay,  if  you  could  supj)ose  this,  take  lastly  the 
evidence  of  facts,  given  by  the  human  heart  itself.  In  all 
Christian  ages  which  have  been  remarkable  for  their  puri- 
ty or  progress,  there  has  been  absolute  yielding  of  obedient 
devotion,  by  the  lover,  to  his  mistress.  I  say  obedient ; — 
not  merely  enthusiastic  and  worshipping  in  imagination, 
but  entirely  subject,  receiving  from  the  beloved  woman, 


98  SESAME   AND    LILIES. 

however  young,  not  only  the  encouragement,  the  praise, 
and  the  reward  of  all  toil,  but  so  far  as  any  choice  is 
ojjen,  or  any  question  difficult  of  decision,  the  direction 
of  all  toil.  That  chivalry,  to  the  abuse  and  dishonour 
of  which  are  attributable  primarily  whatever  is  cruel  in 
war,  unjust  in  peace,  or  corrupt  and  ignoble  in  domestic 
relations  ;  and  to  the  original  purity  and  power  of  which 
we  owe  the  defence  alike  of  faith,  of  law,  and  of  love  ; — 
that  chivalry,  I  say.  in  its  very  first  conception  of  hon- 
ourable life,  assumes  the  subjection  of  the  young  knight 
to  the  command — should  it  even  be  the  command  in 
caprice — of  his  lady.  It  assumes  this,  because  its  mas- 
ters knew  that  the  first  and  necessary  impulse  of  every 
truly  taught  and  knightly  heart  is  this  of  blind  service 
to  its  lady  ;  that  where  that  true  faith  and  captivity  are 
not,  all  wayward  and  wicked  passions  must  be ;  and 
that  in  this  rapturous  obedience  to  the  single  love  of 
his  youth,  is  the  sanctification  of  all  man's  strength,  and 
the  continuance  of  all  his  purposes.  And  this,  not  be- 
cause such  obedience  would  be  safe,  or  honourable, 
were  it  ever  rendered  to  the  unworthy ;  but  because  it 
ought  to  be  impossible  for  every  noble  youth — it  is 
impossible  for  every  one  rightly  trained — to  love  any 
one  whose  gentle  counsel  he  cannot  trust,  or  whose 
prayerful  command  he  can  hesitate  to  obey. 


or  queens'  gardens.  99 

65.  I  do  not  insist  by  any  farther  argument  on  this,  for 
I  think  it  should  commend  itself  at  once  to  your  knowl- 

I  do  not  insist  by  any  farther  argument  on  this,  for  I 
think  it  should  commend  itself  at  once  to  your  knowl- 
edge of  what  has  been  and  to  your  feelings  of  what 
should  be.  You  cannot  think  that  the,  buckling  on  of 
the  knight's  armour  by  his  lady's  hand  was  a  mere  ca- 
price of  romantic  fashion.  It  is  the  type  of  an  eternal 
truth — that  the  soul's  armour  is  never  well  set  to  the 
heart  unless  a  woman's  hand  has  braced  it ;  and  it  is 
only  when  she  braces  it  loosely  that  the  honour  of  man- 
hood fails.  Know  you  not  those  lovely  lines — I  would 
they  were  learned  by  all  youthful  ladies  of  England  :  — 

"  Ah,  wasteful  woman  ! — she  who  may 
On  her  sweet  self  set  her  own  price, 
Knowing  he  cannot  choose  but  pa}* — 
How  has  she  cheapen'd  Paradise  ! 
How  given  for  nought  her  priceless  gift, 
How  spoiled  the  bread  and  spilPd  the  wine, 
Which,  spent  with  due,  respective  thrift, 
Had  made  brutes  men,  and  men  divine  ! "  * 

66.  Thus  much,  then,  respecting  the  relations  of  lovers  I 

*  Coventry  Patmore.  You  cannot  read  him  too  often  or  too  caref  ullj  ; 
as  far  as  I  know  he  is  the  only  living  poet  who  always  strengthens  and 
purines;  the  others  sometimes  darken,  and  nearly  always  depress  and 
discourage,  the  imagination  they  deeply  seize. 


100  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

believe  you  will  accept.  But  what  we  too  often  doubt 
is  the  fitness  of  the  continuance  of  such  a  relation 
throughout  the  whole  of  human  life.  We  think  it  right 
in  the  lover  and  mistress,  not  in  the  husband  and  wife. 
That  is  to  say,  we  think  that  a  reverent  and  tender  duty 
is  due  to  one  whose  affection  we  still  doubt,  and  whose 
character  we  as  yet  do  but  partially  and  distantly  dis- 
cern ;  and  that  this  reverence  and  duty  are  to  be  with- 
drawn, when  the  affection  has  become  wholly  and  limit- 
lessly  our  own,  and  the  character  has  been  so  sifted  and 
tried  that  we  fear  not  to  entrust  it  with  the  happiness 
of  our  lives.  Do  you  not  see  how  ignoble  this  is,  as 
well  as  how  unreasonable  ?  Do  you  not  feel  that  mar- 
riage,—when  it  is  marriage  at  all, — is  only  the  seal  which 
marks  the  vowed  transition  of  temporary  into  untiring 
service,  and  of  fitful  into  eternal  love  ? 

67.  But  how,  you  will  ask,  is  the  idea  of  this  guiding 
function  of  the  woman  reconcileable  with  a  true  wifely 
subjection  ?  Simply  in  that  it  is  a  guiding,  not  a  deter- 
mining, function.  Let  me  try  to  show  you  briefly  how 
these  powers  seem  to  be  rightly  distinguishable. 

We  are  foolish,  and  without  excuse  foolish,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  "  superiority  "  of  one  sex  to  the  other,  as  if 
they  could  be  compared  in  similar  things.     Each  has 


OF  queens'  gakdens.  101 

what  the  other  has  not :  each  completes  the  other,  and 
is  completed  by  the  other :  they  are  in  nothing  alike, 
and  the  happiness  and  perfection  of  "both  depends  on 
each  asking  and  receiving  from  the  other  what  the  other 
only  can  give. 

68.  Now  their  separate  characters  are  briefly  these. 
The  man's  power  is  active,  progressive,  defensive.  He  is 
eminently  the  doer,  the  creator,  the  discoverer,  the  de- 
fender. His  intellect  is  for  speculation  and  invention  ; 
his  energy  for  adventure,  for  war,  and  for  conquest, 
wherever  war  is  just,  wherever  conquest  necessary.  But 
the  woman's  power  is  for  rule,  not  for  battle, — and  her 
intellect  is  not  for  invention  or  creation,  but  for  sweet 
ordering,  arrangement  and  decision.  She  sees  the  qual- 
ities of  things,  their  claims,  and  their  places.  Her  great 
function  is  Praise  :  she  enters  into  no  contest,  but  in- 
fallibly judges  the  crown  of  contest.  By  her  office,  and 
place,  she  is  protected  from  all  danger  and  temptation. 
The  man,  in  his  rough  work  in  open  world,  must  en- 
counter all  peril  and  trial : — to  him,  therefore,  must  be  the 
failure,  the  offence,  the  inevitable  error :  often  he  must 
be  wounded,  or  subdued;  often  misled;  and  cUvxiys  har- 
dened. But  he  guards  the  woman  from  all  this  ;  within 
his  house,  as  ruled  by  her,  unless  she  herself  has  sought 


102  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

it,  need  enter  no  danger,  no  temptation,  no  cause  of 
error  or  offence.  This  is  the  true  nature  of  home — it 
is  the  place  of  Peace  ;  the  shelter,  not  only  from  all  in^ 
jury,  but  from  all  terror,  doubt,  and  division.  In  so  far 
as  it  is  not  this,  it  is  not  home  :  so  far  as  the  anxieties 
of  the  outer  life  penetrate  into  it,  and  the  inconsistently- 
minded,  unknown,  unloved,  or  hostile  society  of  the 
outer  world  is  allowed  by  either  husband  or  wife  to 
cross  the  threshold,  it  ceases  to  be  home  ;  it  is  then 
only  a  part  of  that  outer  world  which  you  have  roofed 
ever,  and  lighted  fire  in.  But  so  far  as  it  is  a  sacred 
place,  a  vestal  temple,  a  temple  of  the  hearth  watched 
over  by  Household  Gods,  before  whose  faces  none  may 
come  but  those  whom  they  can  receive  with  love, — so 
far  as  it  is  this,  and  roof  and  fire  are  types  only  of  a  no- 
bler shade  and  light, — shade  as  of  the  rock  in  a  weary 
land,  and  light  as  of  the  Pharos  in  the  stormy  sea ; — 
so  far  it  vindicates  the  name,  and  fulfils  the  praise,  of 
home. 

And  wherever  a  true  wife  comes,  this  home  is  always 
round  her.  The  stars  only  may  be  over  her  head  ;  the 
glow-worm  in  the  night-cold  grass  may  be  the  only  fire 
at  her  foot :  but  home  is  yet  wherever  she  is  ;  and  for 
a  noble  woman  it  stretches  far  round  her,  better  than 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  103 

ceiled  with  cedar,  or  painted  with  vermilion,  shedding 
its  quiet  light  far,  for  those  who  else  were  homeless. 

69.  This,  then,  I  believe  to  be, — will  you  not  admit  it 
to  be, — the  woman's  true  place  and  power  ?  But  do  not 
jou  see  that  to  fulfil  this,  she  must — as  far  as  one  can 
use  such  terms  of  a  human  creature — be  incapable  of 
error  ?  So  far  as  she  rules,  all  must  be  right,  or  nothing 
is.  She  must  be  enduringly,  incorruptibly  good;  in- 
stinctively, infallibly  wise — wise,  not  for  self-develop- 
ment, but  for  self-renunciation  :  wise,  not  that  she  may 
set  herself  above  her  husband,  but  that  she  may  never 
fail  from  his  side :  wise,  not  with  the  narrowness  of 
insolent  and  loveless  pride,  but  with  the  passionate 
gentleness  of  an  infinitely  variable,  because  infinitely 
applicable,  modesty  of  service — the  true  changefulncss 
of  woman.  In  that  great  sense — "  La  donna  e  mobile," 
not  "  Qual  pium'  al  vento  ;  "  no,  nor  yet  "  Variable  as  the 
shade,  by  the  light  quivering  aspen  made  ;  "  but  variable 
as  the  light,  manifold  in  fair  and  serene  division,  that  it 
may  take  the  color  of  all  that  it  falls  upon,  and  exalt  it. 

70.  II.  I  have  been  trying,  thus  far,  to  show  you 
what  should  be  the  place,  and  what  the  power  of  woman. 
Now,  secondly,  we  ask,  What  kind  of  education  is  to  fit 
her  for  these  ? 


104  SESAME   AND  LILIES. 

And  if  you  indeed  think  this  a  true  conception  of  her 
office  and  dignity,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  trace  the 
course  of  education  which  would  fit  her  for  the  one,  and 
raise  her  to  the  other. 

The  first  of  our  duties  to  her — no  thoughtful  persons 
now  doubt  this, — is  to  secure  for  her  such  physical 
training  and  exercise  as  may  confirm  her  health,  and 
perfect  her  beauty,  the  highest  refinement  of  that  beauty 
being  unattainable  without  splendor  of  activity  and  of 
delicate  strength.  To  perfect  her  beauty,  I  say,  and 
increase  its  power ;  it  cannot  be  too  powerful,  nor  shed 
its  sacred  light  too  far :  only  remember  that  all  physical 
freedom  is  vain  to  produce  beauty  without  a  correspond- 
ing freedom  of  heart.  There  are  two  passages  of  that 
poet  who  is  distinguished,  it  seems  to  me,  from  all 
others — not  by  power,  but  by  exquisite  Tightness — which 
point  you  to  the  source,  and  describe  to  you,  in  a  few 
syllables,  the  completion  of  womanly  beauty.  I  will 
read  the  introductory  stanzas,  but  the  last  is  the  one  I 
wish  you  specially  to  notice  : — 

"  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower, 

Then  Nature  said,  '  A  lovelier  flower 

On  earth  was  never  sown. 


OF  queens'  gakdens.  105 

This  child  I  to  myself  will  take  ; 
She  shall  be  mine,  and  I  will  make 
A  lady  of  my  own. 

6  Myself  will  to  my  darling  be 
Both  law  and  impulse  ;  and  with  me 

The  girl,  in  rock  and  plain, 
In  earth  and  heaven,  in  glade  and  bower, 
Shall  feel  an  overseeing  power 

To  kindle,  or  restrain. 

'  The  floating  clouds  their  state  shall  lend 
To  her  ;  for  her  the  willow  bend ; 

Nor  shall  she  fail  to  see 
Even  in  the  motions  of  the  storm 
Grace  that  shall  mould  the  maiden's  form 

By  silent  sympathy. 

'  And  vital  feelings  of  delight 
Shall  rear  her  form  to  stately  height, 

Her  virgin  bosom  swell. 
Such  thoughts  to  Lucy  I  will  give, 
While  she  and  I  together  live, 

Here  in  this  happy  dell."  * 

"  Vital  feelings  of  delight,"  observe.  There  are  deadly 
feelings  of  delight ;  but  the  natural  ones  are  vital, 
necessary  to  very  life. 

*  Observe,  it  is   "Nature"  who  is  speaking  throughout,  and  who 

says, 

"  While  she  and  I  together  live." 


106  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

And  they  must  be  feelings  of  delight,  if  they  are  to 
be  vital.  Do  not  think  yon  can  make  a  girl  lovely,  if 
you  do  not  make  her  happy.  There  is  not  one  restraint 
you  put  on  a  good  girl's  nature — there  is  not  one  check 
you  give  to  her  instincts  of  affection  or  of  effort — which 
will  not  be  indelibly  written  on  her  features,  with  a 
hardness  which  is  all  the  more  painful  because  it  takes 
away  the  brightness  from  the  eyes  of  innocence,  and  the 
charm  from  the  brow  of  virtue. 

71.  This  for  the  means :  now  note  the  end.  Take 
from  the  same  poet,  in  two  lines,  a  perfect  description 
of  womanly  beauty — 

"  A  countenance  in  which  did  meet 
Sweet  records,  promises  as  sweet." 

The  perfect  loveliness  of  a  woman's  countenance  can 
only  consist  in  that  majestic  peace,  which  is  founded  in 
the  memory  of  happy  and  useful  years, — full  of  sweet 
records  ;  and  from  the  joining  of  this  with  that  yet  more 
majestic  childishness,  which  is  still  full  of  change  and 
promise  ; — opening  always — modest  at  once,  and  bright, 
with  hope  of  better  things  to  be  won,  and  to  be  be- 
stowed. There  is  no  old  age  where  there  is  still  that 
promise. 


OF   QUEENS     GARDENS.  107 

72.  Thus,  then,  you  have  first  to  mould  her  physical 
frame,  and  then,  as  the  strength  she  gains  will  permit 
you,  to  fill  and  temper  her  mind  with  all  knowledge  and 
thoughts  which  tend  to  confirm  its  natural  instincts  of 
justice,  and  refine  its  natural  tact  of  love. 

All  such  knowledge  should  be  given  her  as  may  ena- 
ble her  to  understand,  and  even  to  aid,  the  work  of  men  : 
and  yet  it  should  be  given,  not  as  knowledge, —  not  as  if  it 
were,  or  could  be,  for  her  an  object  to  know ;  but  only 
to  feel,  and  to  judge.  It  is  of  no  moment,  as  a  matter 
of  pride  or  perfectness  in  herself,  whether  she  knows 
many  languages  or  one  ;  but  it  is  of  the  utmost,  that  she 
should  be  able  to  show  kindness  to  a  stranger,  and  to 
understand  the  sweetness  of  a  stranger's  tongue.  It  is 
of  no  moment  to  her  own  worth  or  dignity  that  she 
should  be  acquainted  with  this  science  or  that ;  but  it 
is  of  the  highest  that  she  should  be  trained  in  habits  of 
accurate  thought ;  that  she  should  understand  the  mean- 
ing, the  inevitableness,  and  the  loveliness  of  natural  laws ; 
and  follow  at  least  some  one  path  of  scientific  attainment, 
as  far  as  to  the  threshold  of  that  bitter  Yalley  of  Hu- 
miliation, into  which  only  the  wisest  and  bravest  of  men 
can  descend,  owning  themselves  forever  children,  gath- 
ering pebbles  on  a  boundless  shore.  It  is  of  little 
5* 


108  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

consequence  how  many  positions  of  cities  she  knows, 
or  how  many  dates  of  events,  or  names  of  celebrated 
persons — it  is  not  the  object  of  education  to  turn  a 
woman  into  a  dictionary;  but  it  is  deeply  necessary 
that  she  should  be  taught  to  enter  with  her  whole 
personality  into  the  history  she  reads ;  to  picture  the 
passages  of  it  vitally  in  her  own  bright  imagination  ;  to 
apprehend,  with  her  fine  instincts,  the  pathetic  circum- 
stances and  dramatic  relations,  which  the  historian  too 
often  only  eclipses  by  his  reasoning,  and  disconnects  by 
his  arrangement :  it  is  for  her  to  trace  the  hidden  equi- 
ties of  divine  reward,  and  catch  sight,  through  the 
darkness,  of  the  fateful  threads  of  woven  fire  that  con- 
nect error  with  its  retribution.  But,  chiefly  of  all,  she 
is  to  be  taught  to  extend  the  limits  of  her  sympathy 
with  respect  to  that  history  which  is  being  for  her  de- 
termined as  the  moments  pass  in  which  she  draws  her 
peaceful  breath  :  and  to  the  contemporary  calamity, 
which,  were  it  but  rightly  mourned  by  her,  would  recur 
no  more  hereafter.  She  is  to  exercise  herself  in  imagin- 
ing what  would  be  the  effects  upon  her  mind  and  con- 
duct, if  she  were  daily  brought  into  the  presence  of  the 
suffering  which  is  not  the  less  real  because  shut  from 
her  sight.    She  is  to  be  taught  somewhat  to  understand 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  109 

the  nothingness  of  the  proportion  which  that  little  world 
in  which  she  lives  and  loves,  bears  to  the  world  in  which 
God  lives  and  loves  ; — and  solemnly  she  is  to  be  taught 
to  strive  that  her  thoughts  of  piety  may  not  be  feeble  in 
proportion  to  the  number  they  embrace,  nor  her  prayer 
more  languid  than  it  is  for  the  momentary  relief  from 
pain  of  her  husband  or  her  child,  when  it  is  uttered  for 
the  multitudes  of  those  who  have  none  to  love  them, — ■ 
and  is,  "  for  all  who  are  desolate  and  oppressed." 

73.  Thus  far,  I  think,  I  have  had  your  concurrence;  per- 
haps you  will  not  be  with  me  in  what  I  believe  is  most 
needful  for  me  to  say.  There  is  one  dangerous  science 
for  women — one  which  they  must  indeed  beware  how 
they  profanely  touch— that  of  theology.  Strange,  and 
miserably  strange,  that  while  they  are  modest  enough 
to  doubt  their  powers,  and  pause  at  the  threshold  of 
sciences  where  every  step  is  demonstrable  and  sure,  they 
will  plunge  headlong,  and  without  one  thought  of  in- 
competency, into  that  science  in  which  the  greatest  men 
have  trembled,  and  the  wisest  erred.  Strange,  that  they 
will  complacently  and  pridefully  bind  up  whatever  vice 
or  folly  there  is  in  them,  whatever  arrogance,  petulance, 
or  blind  incomprehensiveness,  into  one  bitter  bundle  of 
consecrated  myrrh.     Strange,  in  creatures  born  to  be 


110  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

Love  visible,  that  where  they  can  know  least,  they  will 
condemn  first,  and  think  to  recommend  themselves  to 
their  Master,  by  scrambling  np  the  steps  of  His  judgment 
throne,  to  divide  it  with  Him.  Strangest  of  all,  that  they 
should  think  they  were  led  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Com- 
forter into  habits  of  mind  which  have  become  in  them 
the  unmixed  elements  of  home  discomfort;  and  that 
they  dare  to  turn  the  Household  Gods  of  Christian- 
ity into  ugly  idols  of  their  own ; — spiritual  dolls,  for 
them  to  dress  according  to  their  caprice  ;  and  from 
which  their  husbands  must  turn  away  in  grieved  con- 
tempt, lest  they  should  be  shrieked  at  for  breaking 
them. 

74.  I  believe  then,  with  this  exception,  that  a  girl's  edu- 
cation shouldbe  nearly,  in  its  course  and  material  of  study, 
the  same  as  a  boy's  ;  but  quite  differently  directed.  A 
woman,  in  any  rank  of  life,  ought  to  know  whatever  her 
husband  is  likely  to  know,  but  to  know  it  in  a  different 
way.  His  command  of  it  should  be  foundational  and 
progressive ;  hers,  general  and  accomplished  for  daily 
and  helpful  use.  Not  but  that  it  would  often  be  wiser 
in  men  to  learn  things  in  a  womanly  sort  of*  way,  for 
present  use,  and  to  seek  for  the  discipline  and  training 
of  their  mental  powers  in  such  branches  of  study  as  will 


OP  queens'  gaedens.  Ill 

be  afterwards  fittest  for  social  service ;  but,  speaking 
broadly,  a  man  ought  to  know  any  language  or  science 
he  learns,  thoroughly — while  a  woman  ought  to  know 
the  same  language,  or  science,  only  so  far  as  may  enable 
her  to  sympathise  in  her  husband's  pleasures,  and  in 
those  of  his  best  friends. 

75.  Yet,  observe,  with  exquisite  accuracy  as  far  as  she 
reaches.  There  is  a  wide  difference  between  element- 
ary knowledge  and  superficial  knowledge — between  a 
firm  beginning,  and  an  infirm  attempt  at  compassing. 
A  woman  may  always  help  her  husband  by  what  she 
knows,  however  little  f  by  what  she  half-knows,  or  mis- 
knows,  she  will  only  teaze  him. 

And  indeed,  if  there  were  to  be  any  difference  be- 
tween a  girl's  education  and  a  boy's,  I  should  say  that 
of  the  two  the  girl  should  be  earlier  led,  as  her  intellect 
ripens  faster,  into  deep  and  serious  subjects :  and  that 
her  range  of  literature  should  be,  not  more,  but  less 
frivolous  ;  calculated  to  add  the  qualities  of  patience  and 
seriousness  to  her  natural  poignancy  of  thought  and 
quickness  of  wit ;  and  also  to  keep  her  in  a  lofty  and 
pure  element  of  thought.  I  enter  not  now  into  any 
question  of  choice  of  books  ;  only  let  us  be  sure  that  her 
books  are  not  heaped  up  in  her  lap  as  they  fall  out  of 


112  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

the  package  of  the  circulating  library,  wet  with  the  last 
and  lightest  spray  of  the  fountain  of  folly. 

76.  Or  even  of  the  fountain  of  wit ;  for  with  respect  to 
that  sore  temptation  of  novel-reading,  it  is  not  the  bad- 
ness of  a  novel  that  we  should  dread,  so  much  as  its  over- 
wrought interest.  The  weakest  romance  is  not  so  stupi- 
fying  as  the  lower  forms  of  religious  exciting  literature, 
and  the  worst  romance  is  not  so  corrupting  as  false 
history,  false  philosophy,  or  false  political  essays.  But 
the  best  romance  becomes  dangerous,  if,  by  its  excite- 
ment, it  renders  the  ordinary  course  of  life  uninteresting, 
and  increases  the  morbid  thirst  for  useless  acquaintance 
with  scenes  in  which  we  shall  never  be  called  upon  to 
act. 

77. 1  speak  therefore  of  good  novels  only;  anci  our  mod- 
ern literature  is  particularly  rich  in  types  of  such.  Well 
read,  indeed,  these  books  have  serious  use,  being  nothing 
less  than  treatises  on  moral  anatomy  and  chemistry ; 
studies  of  human  nature  in  the  elements  of  it.  But  I 
attach  little  weight  to  this  function  :  they  are  hardly 
ever  read  with  earnestness  enough  to  permit  them  to 
fulfil  it.  The  utmost  they  usually  do  is  to  enlarge 
somewhat  the  charity  of  a  kind  reader,  or  the  bitterness 
of  a  malicious  one  ;  for  each  will  gather,  from  the  novel, 


OF  QUEENS    GAEDENS.  113 

food  for  her  own  disposition.  Those  who  are  naturally 
proud  and  envious  will  learn  from  Thackeray  to  despise 
humanity ;  those  who  are  naturally  gentle,  to  pity  it ; 
those  who  are  naturally  shallow,  to  laugh  at  it.  So, 
also,  there  might  be  a  serviceable  power  in  novels  to 
bring  before  us,  in  vividness,  a  human  truth  which  we 
had  before  dimly  conceived  ;  but  the  temptation  to  pic- 
turesqueness  of  statement  is  so  great,  that  often  the 
best  writers  of  fiction  cannot  resist  it ;  and  our  views 
are  rendered  so  violent  and  one-sided,  that  their  vitality 
is  rather  a  harm  than  good. 

78.  Without,  however,  venturing  here  on  any  attempt 
at  decision  how  much  novel-reading  should  be  allowed, 
let  me  at  least  clearly  assert  this,  that  whether  novels,  or 
poetry,  or  history  be  read,  they  should  be  chosen,  not 
for  their  freedom  from  evil,  but  for  their  possession  of 
good.  The  chance  and  scattered  evil  that  may  here  and 
there  haunt,  or  hide  itself  in,  a  powerful  book,  never  does 
any  harm  to  a  noble  girl ;  but  the  emptiness  of  an  author 
oppresses  her,  and  his  amiable  folly  degrades  her.  And  if 
she  can  have  access  to  a  good  library  of  old  and  classical 
books,  there  need  be  no  choosing  at  all.  Keep  the 
modern  magazine  and  novel  out  of  your  girl's  way  :  turn 
her  loose  into  the  old  library  every  wet  day,  and  let  her 


114  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

alone.  She  will  find  what  is  good  for  her ;  you  cannot : 
for  there  is  just  this  difference  between  the  making  of 
a  girl's  character  and  a  boy's — you  may  chisel  a  boy 
into  shape,  as  you  would  a  rock,  or  hammer  him  into  it, 
if  he  be  of  a  better  kind,  as  you  would  a  piece  of  bronze. 
But  you  cannot  hammer  a  girl  into  anything.  She 
grows  as  a  flower  does, — she  will  wither  without  sun ; 
she  will  decay  in  her  sheath,  as  the  narcissus  will,  if 
you  do  not  give  her  air  enough ;  she  may  fall,  and  defile 
her  head  in  dust,  if  you  leave  her  without  help  at  some 
moments  of  her  life ;  but  you  cannot  fetter  her ;  she 
must  take  her  own  fair  form  and  way,  if  she  take  any, 
and  in  mind  as  in  body,  must  have  always 

"  Her  household  motions  light  and  free 
And  steps  of  virgin  liberty." 

Let  her  loose  in  the  library,  I  say,  as  you  do  a  fawn  in 
a  field.  It  knows  the  bad  weeds  twenty  times  better 
than  you ;  and  the  good  ones  too,  and  will  eat  some 
bitter  and  prickly  ones,  good  for  it,  which  you  had  not 
the  slightest  thought  would  have  been  so. 

79.  Then,  in  art,  keep  the  finest  models  before  her,  and 
let  her  practice  in  all  accomplishments  be  accurate  and 
thorough,  so  as  to  enable  her  to  understand  more  than 


OF  queens'  gardens.  115 

she  accomplishes.  I  say  the  finest  models — that  is 
to  say,  the  truest,  simplest,  usefullesi  Note  those  epi- 
thets ;  they  will  range  through  all  the  arts.  Try  them 
in  music,  where  you  might  think  them  the  least  applic- 
able. I  say  the  truest,  that  in  which  the  notes  most 
closely  and  faithfully  express  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
or  the  character  of  intended  emotion ;  again,  the  sim- 
plest, that  in  which  the  meaning  and  melody  are  attained 
with  the  fewest  and  most  significant  notes  possible ;  and, 
finally,  the  usefullest,  that  music  which  makes  the  best 
words  most  beautiful,  which  enchants  them  in  our  mem- 
ories each  with  its  own  glory  of  sound,  and  which  ap- 
plies them  closest  to  the  heart  at  the  moment  we  need 
them. 

80.  And  not  only  in  the  material  and  in  the  course,  but 
yet  more  earnestly  in  the  spirit  of  it,  let  a  girl's  educa- 
tion be  as  serious  as  a  boy's.  You  bring  up  your  girls 
as  if  they  were  meant  for  sideboard  ornament,  and  then 
complain  of  their  frivolity.  Give  them  the  same  advan- 
tages that  you  give  their  brothers — appeal  to  the  same 
grand  instincts  of  virtue  in  them  ;  teach  them,  also,  that 
courage  and  truth  are  the  pillars  of  their  being: — do  you 
think  that  they  would  not  answer  that  appeal,  brave  and 
true  as  they  are  even  now,  when  you  know  that  there  is 


116  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

hardly  a  girl's  school  in  this  Christian  kingdom  where 
the  children's  courage  or  sincerity  would  be  thought  of 
half  so  much  importance  as  their  way  of  coming  in  at  a 
door  ;  and  when  the  whole  system  of  society,  as  respects 
the  mode  of  establishing  them  in  life,  is  one  rotten 
plague  of  cowardice  and  imposture — cowardice,  in  not 
daring  to  let  them  live,  or  love,  except  as  their  neigh- 
bours choose  ;  and  imposture,  in  bringing,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  our  own  pride,  the  full  glow  of  the  world's  worst 
vanity  upon  a  girl's  eyes,  at  the  very  period  when  the 
whole  happiness  of  her  future  existence  depends  upon 
her  remaining  undazzled  ? 

81.  And  give  them,  lastly,  not  only  noble  teachings, 
but  noble  teachers.  You  consider  somewhat,  before  you 
send  your  boy  to  school,  what  kind  of  a  man  the  master 
is  • — whatsoever  kind  of  a  man  he  is,  you  at  least  give  him 
full  authority  over  your  son,  and  show  some  respect  for 
him  yourself  ; — if  he  comes  to  dine  with  you,  you  do  not 
put  him  at  a  side  table  :  you  know  also  that,  at  his  col- 
lege, your  child's  immediate  tutor  will  be  under  the 
direction  of  some  still  higher  tutor,  for  whom  you  have 
absolute  reverence.  You  do  not  treat  the  Dean  of  Christ 
Church  or  the  Master  of  Trinity  as  your  inferiors. 

But  what  teachers  do  you  give  your  girls,  and  what 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  117 

reverence  do  you  show  to  the  teachers  you  have  chosen  ? 
Is  a  girl  likely  to  think  her  own  conduct,  or  her  own 
intellect,  of  much  importance,  when  you  trust  the  entire 
formation  of  her  character,  moral  and  intellectual,  to  a 
person  whom  you  let  your  servants  treat  with  less  re- 
spect than  they  do  your  housekeeper  (as  if  the  soul  of 
your  child  were  a  less  charge  than  jams  and  groceries), 
and  whom  you  yourself  think  you  confer  an  honour  upon 
by  letting  her  sometimes  sit  in  the  drawing-room  in  the 
evening  ? 

82.  Thus,  then,  of  literature  as  her  help,  and  thus  of  art. 
There  is  one  more  help  which  we  cannot  do  without — 
one  which,  alone,  has  sometimes  done  more  than  all 
other  influences  besides, — the  help  of  wild  and  fair  na- 
ture.    Hear  this  of  the  education  of  Joan  of  Arc : — 

"  The  education  of  this  poor  girl  was  mean  according  to 
the  present  standard;  was  ineffably  grand,  according  to  a 
purer  philosophic  standard  ;  and  only  not  good  for  our  age, 
because  for  us  it  would  be  unattainable.   *  *  * 

"Next  after  her  spiritual  advantages,  she  owed  most  to 
the  advantages  of  her  situation.  The  fountain  of  DomrSmy 
was  on  the  brink  of  a  boundless  forest ;  and  it  was  haunted 
to  that  degree  by  fairies,  that  the  parish  priest  (cure)  was 
obliged  to  read  mass  there  once  a  year,  in  order  to  keep  them 
in  any  decent  bounds.  *  *  * 


118  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

"  But  the  forests  of  Domremy — those  were  the  glories  of  the 
land ;  for  in  them  abode  mysterious  powers  and  ancient  se- 
crets that  towered  into  tragic  strength.  '  Abbeys  there  were, 
and  abbey  windows,' — c  like  Moorish  temples  of  the  Hindoos/ 
that  exercised  even  princely  power  both  in  Touraine  and  in 
the  German  Diets.  These  had  their  sweet  bells  that  pierced 
the  forests  for  many  a  league  at  matins  or  vespers,  and  each 
its  own  dreamy  legend.  Few  enough,  and  scattered  enough, 
were  these  abbeys,  so  as  in  no  degree  to  disturb  the  deep 
solitude  of  the  region  ;  yet  many  enough  to  spread  a  network 
or  awning  of  Christian  sanctity  over  what  else  might  have 
Beemed  a  heathen  wilderness."  * 

Now,  you  cannot,  indeed,  have  here  in  England,  woods 
eighteen  miles  deep  to  the  centre  ;  but  you  can,  perhaps, 
keep  a  fairy  or  two  for  your  children  yet,  if  you  wish  to 
keep  them.  But  do  you  wish  it?  Suppose  you  had 
each,  at  the  back  of  your  houses,  a  garden  large  enough 
for  your  children  to  play  in,  with  just  as  much  lawn  as 
would  give  them  room  to  run, — no  more — and  that  you 
could  not  change  your  abode  ;  but  that,  if  you  chose, 
you  could  double  your  income,  or  quadruple  it,  by  dig- 
ging a  coal  shaft  in  the  middle  of  the  lawn,  and  turning 
the  flower-beds  into  heaps  of  coke.     "Would  you  do  it  ? 

*  "Joan  of  Arc:  in  reference  to  M.  Miehelet's  History  of  France." 
De  Quincey's  Works.  Vol.  iii.  p.  217. 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  119 

I  hope  not.  I  can  tell  you,  you  would  be  wrong  if  you 
did,  though  it  gave  you  income  sixty-fold  instead  of 
four-fold. 

83.  Yet  this  is  what  you  are  doing  with  all  England. 
The  whole  country  is  but  a  little  garden,  not  more  than 
enough  for  your  children  to  run  on  the  lawns  of,  if  you 
would  let  them  all  run  there.  And  this  little  garden 
you  will  turn  into  furnace-ground,  and  fill  with  heaps  of 
cinders,  if  you  can ;  and  those  children  of  yours,  not 
you,  will  suffer  for  it.  For  the  fairies  will  not  be  all  ban- 
ished ;  there  are  fairies  of  the  furnace  as  of  the  wood, 
and  their  first  gifts  seem  to  be  "  sharp  arrows  of  the 
mighty  ;  "  but  their  last  gifts  are  "  coals  of  juniper." 

84.  And  yet  I  cannot — though  there  is  no  part  of  my  sub- 
ject that  I  feel  more — press  this  upon  you;  for  we  made 
so  little  use  of  the  power  of  nature  while  we  had  it  that 
we  shall  hardly  feel  what  we  have  lost.  Just  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Mersey  you  have  your  Snowdon,  and 
your  Menai  Straits,  and  that  mighty  granite  rock  be- 
yond the  moors  of  Anglesea,  splendid  in  its  heatherly 
crest,  and  foot  planted  in  the  deep  sea,  once  thought  of 
as  sacred — a  divine  promontory,  looking  westward  ;  the 
Holy  Head  or  Headland,  still  not  without  awe  when  its 
red  light  glares  first  through  storm.   These  are  the  hills, 


120  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

and  these  the  bays  and  blue  inlets,  which,  among  the 
Greeks,  would  have  been  always  loved,  always  fateful  in 
influence  on  the  national  mind.  That  Snowdon  is  your 
Parnassus  ;  but  where  are  its  Muses  ?  That  Holyhead 
mountain  is  your  Island  of  iEgina,  but  where  is  its 
Temple  to  Minerva? 

85.  Shall  I  read  you  what  the  Christian  Minerva  had 
achieved  under  the  shadow  of  our  Parnassus,  up  to  the 
year  1848  ? — Here  is  a  little  account  of  a  Welsh  school, 
from  page  261  of  the  report  on  "Wales,  published  by  the 
Committee  of  Council  on  Education.  This  is  a  school 
close  to  a  town  containing  5,000  persons  : — 

"  I  then  called  up  a  larger  class,  most  of  whom  had  re- 
cently come  to  the  school.  Three  girls  repeatedly  declared 
they  had  never  heard  of  Christ,  and  two  that  they  had  never 
heard  of  God.  Two  out  of  six  thought  Christ  was  on  earth 
now  ('they  might  have  had  a  worse  thought,  perhaps'); 
three  knew  nothing  about  the  crucifixion.  Four  out  of 
seven  did  not  know  the  names  of  the  months,  nor  the 
number  of  days  in  a  year.  They  had  no  notion  of  addition 
beyond  two  and  two,  or  three  and  three  ;  their  minds  were 
perfect  blanks." 

Oh,  ye  women  of  England !  from  the  Princess  of  that 
Wales  to  the  simplest  of  you,  do  not  think  your  own 


or  queens'  gardens.  121 

children  can  be  brought  into  their  true  fold  of  rest 
while  these  are  scattered  on  the  hills,  as  sheep  having 
no  shepherd.  And  do  not  think  your  daughters  can  be 
trained  to  the  truth  of  their  own  human  beauty,  while 
the  pleasant  places,  which  God  made  at  once  for  their 
sekool-rooin  and  their  play-ground,  lie  desolate  and 
denied.  You  cannot  baptize  them  rightly  in  those  inch- 
deep  fonts  of  yours,  unless  you  baptize  them  also  in  the 
sweet  waters  which  the  great  Lawgiver  strikes  forth 
for  ever  from  the  rocks  of  your  native  land — waters 
which  a  Pagan  would  have  worshipped  in  their  purity, 
and  you  only  worship  with  pollution.  Tou  cannot  lead 
your  children  faithfully  to  those  narrow  axe-hewn  church 
altars  of  yours,  while  the  dark  azure  altars  in  heaven — • 
the  mountains  that  sustain  your  island  throne, — moun- 
tains on  which  a  Pagan  would  have  seen  the  powers  of 
heaven  rest  in  every  wreathed  cloud — remain  for  you 
without  inscription  ;  altars  built,  not  to,  but  by,  an  Un- 
known God. 

86.  III.  Thus  far,  then,  of  the  nature,  thus  far  of  the 
teaching,  of  woman,  and  thus  of  her  household  office, 
and  queenliness.  "We  come  now  to  our  last,  our  widest 
question, — What  is  her  queenly  office  with  respect  to 
the  state  ? 


122  SESAME  AND  LLIIES. 

Generally  we  are  under  an  impression  that  a  man's 
duties  are  public,  and  a  woman's  private.  But  this  is 
not  altogether  so.  A  man  has  a  personal  work  or  duty, 
relating  to  his  own  home,  and  a  public  work  or  duty, 
which  is  the  expansion  of  the  other,  relating  to  the  state. 
So  a  woman  has  a  personal  work  and  duty,  relating  to 
her  own  home,  and  a  public  work  and  duty,  which  is  also 
the  expansion  of  that. 

Now  the  man's  work  for  his  own  home  is,  as  has  been 
said,  to  secure  its  maintenance,  progress,  and  defence ; 
the  woman's  to  secure  its  order,  comfort,  and  loveliness. 
'  Expand  both  these  functions.  The  man's  duty,  as  a 
member  of  a  commonwealth,  is  to  assist  in  the  mainte- 
nance, in  the  advance,  in  the  defence  of  the  state.  The 
woman's  duty,  as  a  member  of  the  commonwealth,  is  to 
assist  in  the  ordering,  in  the  comforting,  and  in  the 
beautiful  adornment  of  the  state. 

What  the  man  is  at  his  own  gate,  defending  it,  if  need 
be,  against  insult  and  spoil,  that  also,  not  in  a  less,  but 
in  a  more  devoted  measure,  he  is  to  be  at  the  gate  of 
his  country,  leaving  his  home,  if  need  be,  even  to  the 
spoiler,  to  do  his  more  incumbent  work  there. 

And,  in  like  manner,  what  the  woman  is  to  be  within 
her  gates,  as  the  centre  of  order,  the  balm  of  distress, 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  123 

and  the  mirror  of  beauty ;  that  she  is  also  to  be  -without 
her  gates,  where  order  is  more  difficult,  distress  more 
imminent,  loveliness  more  rare. 

And  as  within  the  human  heart  there  is  always  set  an 
instinct  for  all  its  real  duties, — an  instinct  which  you 
cannot  quench,  but  only  warp  and  corrupt  if  you  with- 
draw it  from  its  true  purpose ; — as  there  is  the  intense 
instinct  of  love,  which,  rightly  disciplined,  maintains  all 
the  sanctities  of  life  and,  misdirected, undermines  them; 
and  mast  do  either  the  one  or  the  other  ; — so  there  is  in 
the  human  heart  an  inextinguishable  instinct,  the  love  of 
power,  which,  rightly  directed,  maintains  all  the  majesty 
of  law  and  life,  and  misdirected,  wrecks  them. 

87.  Deep  rooted  in  the  innermost  life  of  the  heart  of 

man,  and  of  the  heart  of  woman,  God  set  it  there,  and 

God  keeps  it  there.     Vainly,  as  falsely,  you  blame  or 

rebuke  the  desire  of  power  ! — For  Heaven's  sake,  and 

for  Man's  sake,  desire  it  all  you  can.     But  ichat  power  ? 

That  is  all  the  question.    Power  to  destroy?  the  lion's 

limb,  and  the    dragon's    breath?     Not   so.     Power  to 

heal,  to  redeem,  to  guide,  and  to  guard.     Power  of  the 

sceptre  and  shield ;  the  power  of  the  royal  hand  that 

heals  in  touching, — that  binds  the  fiend  and  looses  the 

captive ;  the  throne  that  is  founded  on  the  rock  of  Jus- 
6 


124 


SESAME  AND  LILIES. 


tice,  and  descended  from  only  by  steps  of  mercy.  Will 
you  not  covet  such  power  as  this,  and  seek  such  throne 
as  this,  and  be  no  more  housewives,  but  queens  ? 

88.  It  is  now  long  since  the  women  of  England  arro- 
gated, universally,  a  title  which  once  belonged  to  nobility 
only,  and,  having  once  been  in  the  habit  of  accepting  the 
simple  title  of  gentlewoman,  as  correspondent  to  that 
of  gentleman,  insisted  on  the  privilege  of  assuming  the 
title  of  "  Lady,"*  which  properly  corresponds  only  to 
the  title  of  "  Lord." 

I  do  not  blame  them  for  this ;  but  only  for  their  nar- 
row motive  in  this.  I  would  have  them  desire  and 
claim  the  title  of  Lady,  provided  they  claim,  not  merely 
the  title,  but  the  office  and  duty  signified  by  it.  Lady 
means  "bread-giver"  or  "loaf-giver,"  and  Lord  means 
"maintainer  of  laws,"  and  both  titles  have  reference, 
not  to  the  law  which  is  maintained  in  the  house,  nor  to 
the  bread  which  is  given  to  the  household ;  but  to  law 

*  1  wish  there  were  a  true  order  of  chivalry  instituted  for  our  English 
youth  of  certain  ranks,  in  which  both  boy  and  girl  should  receive,  at  a 
given  age,  their  knighthood  and  ladyhood  by  true  title  ;  attainable  only 
by  certain  probation  and  trial  both  of  character  and  accomplishment  ; 
and  to  be  forfeited,  on  conviction,  by  their  peers,  of  any  dishonorable 
act.  Such  an  institution  would  be  entirely,  and  with  all  noble  results, 
possible,  in  a  nation  which  loved  honour.  That  it  would  not  be  possible 
among  us  is  not  to  the  discredit  of  the  scheme. 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  125 

maintained  for  the  multitude,  and  to  bread  broken 
among  the  multitude.  So  that  a  Lord  has  legal  claim 
only  to  his  title  in  so  far  as  he  is  the  maintainor  of  the 
justice  of  the  Lord  of  Lords;  and  a  Lady  has  legal 
claim  to  her  title,  only  so  far  as  she  communicates  that 
help  to  the  poor  representatives  of  her  Master,  which 
women  once,  ministering  to  Him  of  their  substance, 
were  permitted  to  extend  to  that  Master  Himself ;  and 
when  she  is  known,  as  He  Himself  once  was,  in  breaking 
of  bread. 

89.  And  this  beneficent  and  legal  dominion,  this  power 
of  the  DominuSj  or  House  Lord,  and  of  the  Domina,  or 
House-Lady,  is  great  and  venerable,  not  in  the  number 
of  those  through  whom  it  has  lineally  descended,  but  in 
the  number  of  those  whom  it  grasps  within  its  sway ; 
it  is  always  regarded  with  reverent  worship  wherever 
its  dynasty  is  founded  on  its  duty,  and  its  ambition  co- 
relative  with  its  beneficence.  Your  fancy  is  pleased 
with  the  thought  of  being  noble  ladies,  with  a  train  of 
vassals.  Be  it  so :  you  cannot  be  too  noble,  and  your 
train  cannot  be  too  great ;  but  see  to  it  that  your  train 
is  of  vassals  whom  you  serve  and  feed,  not  merely  of 
slaves  who  serve  and  feed  you  ;  and  that  the  multitude 
which  obeys  you  is  of  those  whom  you  have  comforted, 


126  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

not  oppressed, — whom  you  have  redeemed,  not  led  into 
captivity. 

90.  And  this,  which  is  true  of  the  lower  or  household 
dominion,  is  equally  true  of  the  queenly  dominion ; — 
that  highest  dignity  is  open  to  you,  if  you  will  also  ac- 
cept that  highest  duty.  Rex  et  Regina — Roi  et  Reine 
— "  Bight-doers ; "  they  differ  but  from  the  Lady  and 
Lord,  in  that  their  power  is  supreme  over  the  mind  as 
over  the  person — that  they  not  only  feed  and  clothe, 
but  direct  and  teach.  And  whether  consciously  or  not, 
you  must  be,  in  many  a  heart,  enthroned :  there  is  no 
putting  by  that  crown  ;  queens  you  must  always  be ; 
queens  to  your  lovers  ;  queens  to  your  husbands  and 
your  sons  ;  queens  of  higher  mystery  to  the  world  be- 
yond, which  bows  itself,  and  will  for  ever  bow,  before 
the  myrtle  crown,  and  the  stainless  sceptre,  of  woman- 
hood. But,  alas !  you  are  too  often  idle  and  careless 
queens,  grasping  at  majesty  in  the  least  things,  while 
you  abdicate  it  in  the  greatest ;  and  leaving  misrule  and 
violence  to  work  their  will  among  men,  in  defiance  of 
the  power,  which,  holding  straight  in  gift  from  the 
Prince  of  all  Peace,  the  wicked  among  you  betray,  and 
the  good  forget. 

91.  "  Prince  of  Peace."  Note  that  name.  When  kings 


OF  queens'  gaedens.  127 

rule  in  that  name,  and  nobles,  and  the  judges  of  the 
earth,  they  also,  in  their  narrow  place,  and  mortal  meas- 
ure, receive  the  power  of  it.  There  are  no  other  rulers 
than  they  :  other  rule  than  theirs  is  but  ?msrule  ;  they 
who  govern  verily  "Dei  gratia"  are  all  princes,  yes,  or 
princesses,  of  peace.  There  is  not  a  war  in  the  world, 
no,  nor  an  injustice,  but  you  women  are  answerable  for 
it ;  not  in  that  you  have  provoked,  but  in  that  you  have 
not  hindered.  Men,  by  their  nature,  are  prone  to  fight ; 
they  will  fight  for  any  cause,  or  for  none.  It  is  for  you 
to  choose  their  cause  for  them,  and  to  forbid  them  when 
there  is  no  cause.  There  is  no  suffering,  no  injustice, 
no  misery  in  the  earth,  but  the  guilt  of  it  lies  with 
you.  Men  can  bear  the  sight  of  it,  but  you  should 
not  be  able  to  bear  it.  Men  may  tread  it  down  without 
sympathy  in  their  own  struggle ;  but  men  are  feeble  in 
sympathy,  and  contracted  in  hope  ;  it  is  you  only  who 
can  feel  the  depths  of  pain ;  and  conceive  the  way  of  its 
healing.  Instead  of  trying  to  do  this,  you  turn  away 
from  it ;  you  shut  yourselves  within  your  park  walls 
and  garden  gates;  and  you  are  content  to  know  that 
there  is  beyond  them  a  whole  world  in  wilderness — a 
world  of  secrets  which  you  dare  not  penetrate ;  and  of 
suffering  which  you  dare  not  conceive. 


128  SESAME   AND  LILIES. 

92.  I  tell  you  that  this  is  to  me  quite  the  most  amazing 
among  the  phenomena  of  humanity.  I  am  surprised  at 
no  depths  to  which,  when  once  warped  from  its  honour, 
that  humanity  can  be  degraded.  I  do  not  wonder  at 
the  miser's  death,  with  his  hands,  as  they  relax,  drop- 
ping gold.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  sensualist's  life,  with 
the  shroud  wrapped  about  his  feet.  I  do  not  wonder  at 
the  single-handed  murder  of  a  single  victim,  done  by 
the  assassin  in  the  darkness  of  the  railway,  or  reed- 
shadow  of  the  marsh.  I  do  not  even  wonder  at  the 
myriad-handed  murder  of  multitudes,  done  boastfully 
in  the  daylight,  by  the  frenzy  of  nations,  and  the  im- 
measurable, unimaginable  guilt,  heaped  up  from  hell  to 
heaven,  of  their  priests,  and  kings.  But  this  is  won- 
derful to  me — oh,  how  wonderful ! — to  see  the  tender 
and  delicate  woman  among  you,  with  her  child  at  her 
breast,  and  a  power,  if  she  would  wield  it,  over  it,  and 
over  its  father,  purer  than  the  air  of  heaven,  and  stronger 
than  the  seas  of  earth — nay,  a  magnitude  of  blessing 
which  her  husband  would  not  part  with  for  all  that 
earth  itself,  though  it  were  made  of  one  entire  and  per- 
fect chrysolite  : — to  see  her  abdicate  this  majesty  to 
play  at  precedence  with  her  nest-door  neighbor !  This 
is  wonderful — oh,  wonderful ! — to   see  her,  with  every 


OF  queens'  gardens.  129 

innocent  feeling  fresh  within  her,  go  out  in  the  morning 
into  her  garden  to  play  with  the  fringes  of  its  guarded 
flowers,  and  lift  their  heads  when  they  are  drooping, 
with  her  happy  smile  upon  her  face,  and  no  cloud  upon 
her  brow,  because  there  is  a  little  wall  around  her  place 
of  peace  :  and  yet  she  knows,  in  her  heart,  if  she  would 
only  look  for  its  knowledge,  that,  outside  of  that  little 
rose-covered  wall,  the  wild  grass,  to  the  horizon,  is  torn 
up  by  the  agony  of  men,  and  beat  level  by  the  drift  of 
their  life-blood. 

93.  Have  you  ever  considered  what  a  deep  under  mean- 
ing there  lies,  or  at  least  may  be  read,  if  we  choose,  in 
our  custom  of  strewing  flowers  before  those  whom  wo 
think  most  happy  ?  Do  you  suppose  it  is  merely  to 
deceive  them  into  the  hope  that  happiness  is  always  to 
fall  thus  in  showers  at  their  feet  ? — that  wherever  they 
pass  they  will  tread  on  herbs  of  sweet  scent,  and  that 
the  rough  ground  will  be  made  smooth  for  them  by 
depth  of  roses  ?  So  surely  as  they  believe  that,  they 
will  have,  instead,  to  walk  on  bitter  herbs  and  thorns ; 
and  the  only  softness  to  their  feet  will  be  of  snow.  But 
it  is  not  thus  intended  they  should  believe  ;  thero  is  a 
better  meaning  in  that  okl  custom.  The  path  of  a  good 
woman  is  indeed  strewn  with  flowers  :  but  they  rise  be  • 


130  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

hind  her  steps,  not  before  them.  "  Her  feet  have  touched 
the  meadows,  and  left  the  daisies  rosy." 

94.  You  think  that  only  a  lover's  fancy ; — false  and 
vain  !  How  if  it  could  be  true  ?  You  think  this  also, 
perhaps,  only  a  poet's  fancy — 

' '  Even  the  light  harebell  raised  its  head 
Elastic  from  her  airy  tread." 

But  it  is  little  to  say  of  a  woman,  that  she  only  does  not 
destroy  where  she  passes.  She  should  revive  ;  the  hare- 
bells should  bloom,  not  stoop,  as  she  passes.  You  think 
I  am  rushing  into  wild  hyperbole  ?  Pardon  me,  not  a 
whit — I  mean  what  I  say  in  calm  English,  spoken  in 
resolute  truth.  You  have  heard  it  said — (and  I  believe 
there  is  more  than  fancy  even  in  that  saying,  but  let  it 
pass  for  a  fanciful  one) — that  flowers  only  flourish 
rightly  in  the  garden  of  some  one  who  loves  them.  I 
know  you  would  like  that  to  be  true  ;  you  would  think 
it  a  pleasant  magic  if  you  could  flush  your  flowers  into 
brighter  bloom  by  a  kind  look  upon  them  :  nay,  more, 
if  your  look  had  the  power,  not  only  to  cheer,  but  to 
guard  them ; — if  you  could  bid  the  black  blight  turn 
away,  and  the  knotted  caterpillar  spare — if  you  could 


OF   QUEENS     GARDENS.  131 

bid  the  clew  fall  upon  them  in  the  drought,  and  say  to 
the  south  wind,  in  frost — "Come,  thou  south,  and 
breathe  upon  my  garden,  that  the  spices  of  it  may  flow 
out."  This  you  would  think  a  great  thing  ?  And  do 
you  think  it  not  a  greater  thing,  that  all  this  (and  how 
much  more  than  this  !)  you  can  do,  for  fairer  flowers 
than  these — flowers  that  could  bless  you  for  having 
blessed  them,  and  will  love  you  for  having  loved 
them  ; — flowers  that  have  thoughts  like  yours,  and 
lives  like  yours ;  which,  once  saved,  you  save  for  ever  ? 
Is  this  only  a  little  power  ?  Far  among  the  moorlands 
and  the  rocks,— far  in  the  darkness  of  the  terrible 
streets, — these  feeble  florets  are  lying,  with  all  their 
fresh  leaves  torn,  and  their  stems  broken — will  you 
never  go  down  to  them,  nor  set  them  in  order  in  their 
little  fragrant  beds,  nor  fence  them  in  their  trembling 
from  the  fierce  wind  ?  Shall  morning  follow  morning, 
for  you,  but  not  for  them  ;  and  the  dawn  rise  to  watch, 
far  away,  those  frantic  Dances  of  Death  ;  *  but  no  dawn 
rise  to  breathe  upon  these  living  banks  of  wild  violet, 
and  woodbine,  and  rose  ;  nor  call  to  you,  through 
your  casement, — call  (not  giving  you  the  name  of  the 
English  poet's  lady,  but  the  name  of  Dante's  great  Ma- 
*  See  note,  p.  57. 


132  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

tilda,  who  on  the  edge  of  happy  Lethe,  stood,  wreathing 
.flowers  with  flowers,),  saying  : — 

"  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown, 
And  the  woodbine  spices  are  wafted  abroad 
And  the  musk  of  the  roses  blown  ?  " 

Will  you  not  go  down  among  them  ? — among  those 
sweet  living  things,  whose  new  courage,  sprung  from  the 
earth  with  the  deep  colour  of  heaven  upon  it,  is  start- 
ing up  in  strength  of  goodly  spire  ;  and  whose  purity, 
washed  from  the  dust,  is  opening,  bud  by  bud,  into  the 
flower  of  promise  ; — and  still  they  turn  to  you,  and  for 
you,  "  The  Larkspur  listens — I  hear,  I  hear  !  And  the 
Lily  whispers — I  wait." 

95.  Did  you  notice  that  I  missed  two  lines  when  I 
read  you  that  first  stanza ;  and  think  that  I  had  forgot- 
ten them  ?     Hear  them  now  : — 

"  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown. 
Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
I  am  here  at  the  gate,  alone." 

Who  is  it,  think  you,  who  stands  at  the  gate  of  this 
sweeter  garden,  alone,  waiting  for  you  ?     Did  you  ever 


OF  QUEENS     GAEDENS.  133 

hear,  not  of  a  Maude,  but  a  Madeleine,  who  went  down 
to„her  garden  in  the  dawn,  and  found  one  waiting  at  the 
gate,  whom  she  supposed  to  be  the  gardener  ?  Have 
you  not  sought  Him  often ; — sought  Him  in  rain,  all 
through  the  night ; — sought  Him  in  vain  at  the  gate 
of  that  old  garden  where  the  fiery  sword  is  set  ?  He  is 
never  there  ;  but  at  the  gate  of  this  garden  He  is  waiting 
always — waiting  to  take  your  hand — ready  to  go  down 
to  see  the  fruits  of  the  valley,  to  see  whether  the  vine 
has  flourished,  and  the  pomegranate  budded.  There 
you  shall  see  with  Him  the  little  tendrils  of  the  vines 
that  His  hand  is  guiding — there  you  shall  see  the  pome- 
granate springing  where  His  hand  cast  the  sanguine 
seed ;  —  more :  you  shall  see  the  troops  of  the  angel 
keepers,  that,  with  their  wings,  wave  away  the  hungry 
birds  from  the  pathsides  where  He  has  sown,  and  call 
to  each  other  between  the  vineyard  rows,  "  Take  us  the 
foxes,  the  little  foxes,  that  spoil  the  vines,  for  our  vines 
have  tender  grapes."  Oh — you  queens — you  queens  ; 
among  the  hills  and  happy  greenwood  of  this  land  of 
yours,  shall  the  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  tho 
air  have  nests ;  and  in  your  cities,  shall  the  stones  cry 
out  against  you,  that  they  are  the  only  pillows  where 
tho  Son  of  Man  can  lay  His  head  ? 


LECTURE    in. 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  AETS. 

Lecture  delivered  in  the  theatre  of   the  Royal  College  of  Science, 
Dublin,   186S. 

96.  "When  I  accepted  the  privilege  of  addressing  you 
to-day,  I  was  not  aware  of  a  restriction  with  respect  to 
the  topics  of  discussion  which  may  be  brought  before 
this  Society* — a  restriction  which,  though  entirely 
wise  and  right  under  the  circumstances  contemplated 
in  its  introduction,  would  necessarily  have  disabled  me, 
thinking  as  I  think,  from  preparing  any  lecture  for  you 
ou  the  subject  of  art  in  a  form  which  might  be  perma- 
nently useful.  Pardon  me,  therefore,  in  so  far  as  I  must 
transgress  such  limitation  ;  for  indeed  my  infringement 
will  be  of  the  letter — not  of  the  spirit — of  your  com- 
mands. In  whatever  I  may  say  touching  the  religion 
which  has  been  the  foundation  of  art,  or  the  policy 
which  has  contributed  to  its  power,  if  I  offend  one,  I 
shall  offend  all ;  for  I  shall  take  no  note  of  any  separa- 
tions in  creeds,  or  antagonisms  in  parties  :  neither  do  I 

*  That  no  inference  should  be  made  to  religious  questions. 
134 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AXD   ITS  ARTS.  135 

fear  that  ultimately  I  shall  offend  any,  by  proving — or 
at  least  stating  as  capable  of  positive  proof — the  con- 
nection of  all  that  is  best  in  the  crafts  and  arts  of 
man,  with  the  simplicity  of  his  faith,  and  the  sincerity 
of  his  patriotism. 

97.  But  I  speak  to  you  under  another  disadvantage, 
by  which  I  am  checked  in  frankness  of  utterance,  not 
here  only,  but  everywhere ;  namely,  that  I  am  never 
fully  aware  how  far  my  audiences  are  disposed  to  give 
me  credit  for  real  knowledge  of  my  subject,  or  how  far 
they  grant  me  attention  only  because  I  have  been  some- 
times thought  an  ingenious  or  pleasant  essayist  upon  it. 
For  I  have  had  what,  in  many  respects,  I  boldly  call 
the  misfortune,  to  set  my  words  sometimes  prettily  to- 
gether ;  not  without  a  foolish  vanity  in  the  poor  knack 
that  I  had  of  doing  so ;  until  I  was  heavily  punished 
for  this  pride,  by  finding  that  many  people  thought  of 
the  words  only,  and  cared  nothing  for  their  mea 
Happily,  therefore,  the  power  of  using  such  pleasant 
language — if  indeed  it  ever  were  mine — is  passing 
from  me  ;  and  whatever  I  am  now  able  to  say  at  all,  I 
find  myself  forced  to  say  with  great  plainness, 
thoughts  have  changed  also,  as  my  words  have  ;  and 
whereas  in  earlier  life,  what  little  influence  I  obtained 


136  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

was  due  perhaps  chiefly  to  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
I  was  able  to  dwell  on  the  beauty  of  the  physical  clouds, 
and  of  their  colours  in  the  sky ;  so  all  the  influence  I  now 
desire  to  retain  must  be  due  to  the  earnestness  with 
which  I  am  endeavouring  to  trace  the  form  and  beauty 
of  another  kind  of  cloud  than  those  ;  the  bright  cloud, 
of  which  it  is  written — 

"  What  is  your  life  ?  It  is  even  as  a  vapour  that  ap- 
peareth  for  a  little  time,  and  then  vanisheth  away." 

98.  I  suppose  few  people  reach  the  middle  or  latter 
period  of  their  age,  without  having,  at  some  moment  of 
change  or  disappointment,  felt  the  truth  of  those  bitter 
words  ;  and  been  startled  by  the  fading  of  the  sunshine 
from  the  cloud  of  their  life,  into  the  sudden  agony  of 
the  knowledge  that  the  fabric  of  it  was  as  fragile  as  a 
dream,  and  the  endurance  of  it  as  transient  as  the  dew. 
But  it  is  not  always  that,  even  at  such  times  of  melan- 
choly surprise,  we  can  enter  into  any  true  perception 
that  this  human  life  shares,  in  the  nature  of  it,  not  only 
the  evanescence,  but  the  mystery  of  the  cloud  ;  that  its 
avenues  are  wreathed  in  darkness,  and  its  forms  and 
courses  no  less  fantastic,  than  spectral  and  obscure ;  so 
that  not  only  in  the  vanity  which  Ave  cannot  grasp,  but 
in  the  shadow  which  we  cannot  pierce,  it  is  true  of  this 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  AETS.  137 

cloudy  life  of  ours,  that  "  man  walketh  in  a  vain  shadow, 
and  disquieteth  himself  in  vain." 

99.  And  least  of  all,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
eagerness  of  our  passions,  or  the  height  of  our  pride, 
are  we  able  to  understand  in  its  depth  the  third  and 
most  solemn  character  in  which  our  life  is  like  those 
clouds  of  heaven ;  that  to  it  belongs  not  only  their  tran- 
sience, not  only  their  mystery,  but  also  their  power ;  that 
in  the  cloud  of  the  human  soul  there  is  a  fire  stronger 
than  the  lightning,  and  a  grace  more  precious  than  the 
rain ;  and  that  though  of  the  good  and  evil  it  shall  one 
day  be  said  alike,  that  the  place  that  knew  them  knows 
them  no  more,  there  is  an  infinite  separation  between 
those  whose  brief  presence  had  there  been  a  blessing, 
like  the  mist  of  Eden  that  went  up  from  the  earth  to 
water  the  garden,  and  those  whose  place  knew  them 
only  as  a  drifting  and  changeful  shade,  of  whom  tho 
heavenly  sentence  is,  that  they  are  "wells  without 
water  ;  clouds  that  are  carried  with  a  tempest,  to  whom 
the  mist  of  darkness  is  reserved  for  ever?  " 

100.  To  those  among  us,  however,  who  have  lived 
long  enough  to  form  some  just  estimate  of  the  rate  of 
the  changes  which  are,  hour  by  hour  in  accelerating 
catastrophe,  manifesting  themselves  in   the  laws,  tho 


188  SESAME   AND  LILIES. 

arts,  and  the  creeds  of  men,  it  seems  to  me,  that  now 
at  least,  if  never  at  any  former  time,  the  thoughts  of 
the  true  nature  of  our  life,  and  of  its  powers  and  respon- 
sibilities, should  present  themselves  with  absolute  sad- 
ness and  sternness. 

And  although  I  know  that  this  feeling  is  much  deep- 
ened in  my  own  mind  by  disappointment,  which,  by 
chance,  has  attended  the  greater  number  of  my  cher- 
ished purposes,  I  do  not  for  that  reason  distrust  the 
feeling  itself,  though  I  am  on  my  guard  against  an  ex- 
aggerated degree  of  it :  nay,  I  rather  believe  that  in 
periods  of  new  effort  and  violent  change,  disappointment 
is  a  wholesome  medicine ;  and  that  in  the  secret  of  it, 
as  in  the  twilight  so  beloved  by  Titian,  we  may  see  the 
colours  of  things  with  deeper  truth  than  in  the  most  daz- 
zling sunshine.  And  because  these  truths  about  the 
works  of  men,  which  I  want  to  bring  to-day  before  you, 
are  most  of  them  sad  ones,  though  at  the  same  time 
helpful ;  and  because  also  I  believe  that  your  kind  Irish 
hearts  will  answer  more  gladly  to  the  truthful  expres- 
sion of  a  personal  feeling,  than  to  the  exposition  of  an 
abstract  principle,  I  will  permit  myself  so  much  unre- 
served speaking  of  my  own  causes  of  regret,  as  may 
enable  you  to  make  just  allowance  for  what,  according 


MYSTEEY  OF   LIFE  AND  ITS  AETS.  139 

to  your  sympathies,  you  will  call  either  the  bitterness, 
or  the  insight,  of  a  mind  which  has  surrendere  I 
hopes,  and  been  foiled  in  its  favourite  aims. 

101.  I  spent  the  ten  strongest  years  of  my  life,  (from 
twenty  to  thirty,)  in  endeavouring  to  show  the  excellence 
of  the  work  of  the  man  whom  I  believed,  and  rightly 
believed,  to  be  the  greatest  painter  of  the  schools  of 
England  since  Reynolds.  I  had  then  perfect  faith  in 
the  power  of  every  great  truth  or  beauty  to  prevail  ulti- 
mately, and  take  its  right  place  in  usefulness  and  honour ; 
and  I  strove  to  bring  the  painter's  work  into  this  due 
place,  while  the  painter  was  yet  alive.  But  ho  knew, 
better  than  I,  the  uselessness  of  talking  about  what 
people  could  not  see  for  themselves.  He  always  dis- 
couraged me  scornfully,  even  when  he  thanked  me — and 
he  died  before  even  the  superficial  effect  of  my  work 
was  visible.  I  went  on,  however,  thinking  I  could  at 
least  be  of  use  to  the  public,  if  not  to  him,  in  pr< 
his  power.  My  books  got  talked  about  a  little.  The 
prices  of  modem  pictures,  generally,  rose,  and  I  was 
beginning  to  take  some  pleasure  in  a  sense  of  gradual 
victory,  when,  fortunately  or  unfortunately,  an  oppor- 
tunity of  perfect  trial  undeceived  me  at  onco,  am 
ever.     The  Trustees  of  the  National  Gallery  con 


140  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

sioned  ine  to  arrange  the  Turner  drawings  there,  and 
permitted  me  to  prepare  three  hundred  examples  of  his 
studies  from  nature,  for  exhibition  at  Kensington.  At 
Kensington  they  were  and  are,  placed  for  exhibition ; 
but  they  are  not  exhibited,  for  the  room  in  which  they 
hang  is  always  empty. 

102.  Well — this  showed  me  at  once,  that  those  ten 
years  of  my  life  had  been,  in  their  chief  purpose,  lost. 
For  that,  I  did  not  so  much  care  ;  I  had,  at  least,  learned 
my  own  business  thoroughly,  and  should  be  able,  as  I 
fondly  supposed,  after  such  a  lesson,  now  to  use  my 
knowledge  with  better  effect.  But  what  I  did  care  for, 
was  the — to  me  frightful — discovery,  that  the  most 
splendid  genius  in  the  arts  might  be  permitted  by 
Providence  to  labour  and  perish  uselessly ;  that  in  the 
very  fineness  of  it  there  might  be  something  rendering 
it  invisible  to  ordinary  eyes  ;  but,  that  with  this  strange 
excellence,  faults  might  be  mingled  which  would  be  as 
deadly  as  its  virtues  were  vain ;  that  the  glory  of  it  was 
perishable,  as  well  as  invisible,  and  the  gift  and  grace 
of  it  might  be  to  us,  as  snow  in  summer,  and  as  rain  in 
harvest. 

103.  That  was  the  first  mystery  of  life  to  me.  But, 
while  my  best  energy  was  given  to  the  study  of  painting, 


MYSTERY  OF  LITE  AND   ITS   ARTS.  1-11 

I  had  put  collateral  effort,  more  prudent,  if  less  enthu- 
siastic, into  that  of  architecture ;  and  in  this  I  could 
not  complain  of  meeting  with  no  sympathy.  Among 
several  personal  reasons  which  caused  me  to  desire  that 
I  might  give  this,  my  closing  lecture  on  the  subject  of 
art  here,  in  Ireland,  one  of  the  chief  was,  that  in  read- 
ing it,  I  should  stand  near  the  beautiful  building, — the 
engineers'  school  of  your  college, — which  was  the  first 
realization  I  had  the  joy  to  see,  of  the  principles  I  had, 
until  then,  been  endeavouring  to  teach ;  but  which  alas, 
is  now,  to  me,  no  more  than  the  richly  canopied  monu- 
ment of  one  of  the  most  earnest  souls  that  ever  gave 
itself  to  the  arts,  and  one  of  my  truest  and  most  loving 
friends,  Benjamin  Woodward.  Nor  was  it  here  in  Ire- 
land only  that  I  received  the  help  of  Irish  sympathy 
and  genius.  When,  to  another  friend,  Sir  Thomas 
Deane,  with  Mr.  Woodward,  was  entrusted  the  building 
of  the  museum  at  Oxford,  the  best  details  of  the  work 
were  executed  by  sculptors  who  Jiad  been  born  and 
trained  here  ;  and  the  first  window  of  the  facade  of  the 
building,  in  which  was  inaugurated  the  study  of  natural 
science  in  England,  in  true  fellowship  with  literature, 
was  carved  from  my  design  by  an  Irish  sculptor. 

104   You  may  perhaps  think  that  no  man  ought  to 


142  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

speak  of  disappointment,  to  whom,  even  in  one  branch 
of  labour,  so  much  success  was  granted.  Had  Mr.  Wood- 
ward now  been  beside  me,  I  had  not  so  spoken ;  but  his 
gentle  and  passionate  spirit  was  cut  off  from  the  fulfil- 
ment of  its  purposes,  and  the  work  we  did  together  is 
now  become  vain.  It  may  not  be  so  in  future  ;  but  the 
architecture  we  endeavoured  to  introduce  is  inconsistent 
alike  with  the  reckless  luxury,  the  deforming  mecha- 
nism, and  the  squalid  misery  of  modern  cities  ;  among 
the  formative  fashions  of  the  day,  aided,  especially  in 
England,  by  ecclesiastical  sentiment,  it  indeed  obtained 
notoriety ;  and  sometimes  behind  an  engine  furnace,  or 
a  railroad  bank,  you  may  detect  the  pathetic  discord  of 
its  momentary  grace,  and,  with  toil,  decipher  its  floral 
carvings  choked  with  soot.  I  felt  answerable  to  the 
schools  I  loved,  only  for  their  injury.  I  perceived  that 
this  new  portion  of  my  strength  had  also  been  spent  in 
vain ;  and  from  amidst  streets  of  iron,  and  palaces  of 
crystal,  shrank  back  at  last  to  the  carving  of  the  moun- 
tain and  colour  of  the  flower. 

105.  And  still  I  could  tell  of  failure,  and  failure  re- 
peated as  years  went  on ;  but  I  have  trespassed  enough 
on  your  patience  to  show  you,  in  part,  the  causes  of  my 
discouragement.     Now  let  me  more  deliberately  tell  you 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  ARTS.  143 

its  results.  You  know  there  is  a  tendency  in  the  minds 
of  many  men,  when  they  are  heavily  disappointed  in 
the  main  purposes  of  their  life,  to  feel,  and  perhaps  in 
warning,  perhaps  in  mockery,  to  declare,  that  life 
is  a  vanity.  Because  it  has  disappointed  them,  they 
think  its  nature  is  of  disappointment  always,  or  at  best, 
of  pleasure  that  can  be  grasped  by  imagination  only ; 
that  the  cloud  of  it  has  no  strength  nor  fire  within  ;  but 
is  a  painted  cloud  only,  to  be  delighted  in,  yet  despised. 
You  know  how  beautifully  Pope  has  expressed  this  par- 
ticular phase  of  thought : — 

"  Meanwhile  opinion  gilds,  with  varying  rays, 
These  painted  clouds  that  beautify  our  days; 
Each  want  of  happiness  by  hope  supplied, 

And  each  vacuity  of  sense,  by  pride. 

Hope  builds  as  fast  as  Knowledge  can  destroy  ; 
In  Folly's  cup,  still  laughs  the  bubble  joy. 
One  pleasure  past,  another  still  we  gain, 
And  not  a  vanity  is  given  in  vain/' 

But  the  effect  of  failure  upon  my  own  mind  has  been 
just  the  reverse  of  this.  The  more  that  my  life  disap- 
pointed me,  the  more  solemn  and  wonderful  it  became 
to  me.     It  seemed,  contrarily  to  Pope's  saying,  (bat  the 


144  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

vanity  of  it  was  indeed  given  in  vain ;  but  that  there 
was  something  behind  the  veil  of  it,  which  was  not  van- 
ity. It  became  to  me  not  a  painted  cloud,  but  a  terrible 
and  impenetrable  one  :  not  a  mirage,  which  vanished  as 
I  drew  near,  but  a  pillar  of  darkness,  to  which  I  was 
forbidden  to  draw  near.  For  I  saw  that  both  my  own 
failure,  and  such  success  in  petty  things  as  in  its  poor 
triumph  seemed  to  me  worse  than  failure,  came  from 
the  want  of  sufficiently  earnest  effort  to  understand  the 
whole  law  and  meaning  of  existence,  and  to  bring  it  to 
noble  and  due  end ;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  I  saw  more 
and  more  clearly  that  all  enduring  success  in  the  arts, 
or  in  any  other  occupation,  had  come  from  the  ruling 
of  lower  purposes,  not  by  a  conviction  of  their  nothing- 
ness, but  by  a  solemn  faith  in  the  advancing  power  of 
human  nature,  or  in  the  promise,  however  dimly  appre- 
hended, that  the  mortal  part  of  it  would  one  day  be 
swallowed  up  in  immortality  ;  and  that,  indeed,  the  arts 
themselves  never  had  reached  any  vital  strength  or 
honour  but  in  the  effort  to  proclaim  this  immortality,  and 
in  the  service  either  of  great  and  just  religion,  or  of 
some  unselfish  patriotism,  and  law  of  such  national  life 
as  must  be  the  foundation  of  religion. 

106.   Nothing  that  I  have  ever  said  is  more  true  or 


MYSTEKY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS.  I  1"> 

necessary — nothing  lias  been  more  misunderstood  or 
misapplied — than  my  strong  assertion,  that  the  arts  can 
never  be  right  themselves,  unless  their  motive  is  right. 
It  is  misunderstood  this  way  :  weak  painters,  who  have 
never  learned  their  business,  and  cannot  lay  a  true  line, 
continually  come  to  me,  crying  out — "Look  at  this 
picture  of  mine ;  it  must  be  good,  I  had  such  a  lovely 
motive.  I  have  put  my  whole  heart  into  it,  and  taken 
years  to  think  over  its  treatment."  Well,  the  only 
answer  for  these  people  is — if  one  had  the  cruelty  to 
make  it — "  Sir,  you  cannot  think  over  anything  in  any 
number  of  years, — you  haven't  the  head  to  do  it ;  and 
though  you  had  fine  motives,  strong  enough  to  make 
you  burn  yourself  in  a  slow  fire,  if  only  first  you  could 
paint  a  picture,  you  can't  paint  one,  nor  half  an  inch 
of  one  ;  you  haven't  the  hand  to  do  it." 

But,  far  more  decisively  we  have  to  say  to  the  men 
who  do  know  their  business,  or  may  know  it  if  they 
choose — "  Sir,  you  have  this  gift  and  a  mighty  one  ;  see 
that  you  serve  your  nation  faithfully  with  it.  It  is  a 
greater  trust  than  ships  and  armies :  you  might  cast 
them  away,  if  you  were  their  captain,  with  less  treason 
to  your  people  than  in  casting  your  own  glorious  power 
away,  and   serving  the   devil  with  it  instead  of   men. 


146  SESAME  AMD   LILIES. 

Ships  and  armies  you  may  replace  if  they  are  lost,  but 
a  great  intellect,  once  abused  is  a  curse  to  the  earth 
for  ever." 

107.  This,  then,  I  meant  by  saying  that  the  arts  must 
have  noble  motive.  This  also  I  said  respecting  them, 
that  they  never  had  prospered,  nor  could  prosper,  but 
when  they  had  such  true  purpose,  and  were  devoted  to 
the  proclamation  of  divine  truth  or  law.  And  yet  I  saw 
also  that  they  had  always  failed  in  this  proclamation — 
that  poetry,  and  sculpture,  and  painting,  though  only 
great  when  they  strove  to  teach  us  something  about  the 
gods,  never  had  taught  us  anything  trustworthy  about 
the  gods,  but  had  always  betrayed  their  trust  in  the 
crisis  of  it,  and,  with  their  powers  at  the  full  reach, 
became  ministers  to  pride  and  to  lust.  And  I  felt  also, 
with  increasing  amazement,  the  unconquerable  apathy 
in  ourselves  the  hearers,  no  less  than  in  these  the  teach- 
ers ;  and  that,  while  the  wisdom  and  rightness  of  every 
act  and  art  of  life  could  only  be  consistent  with  a  right 
understanding  of  the  ends  of  life,  we  were  all  plunged 
as  in  a  languid  dream — our  heart  fat,  and  our  eyes 
heavy,  and  our  ears  closed,  lest  the  inspiration  of  hand 
or  voice  should  reach  us — lest  we  should  see  with  our 
eyes,  and  understand  with  our  hearts,  and  be  healed. 


MYSTEEY  OP  LITE  AND  ITS  ARTS.  147 

108.  This  intense  apathy  in  all  of  us  is  the  first  great 
mystery  of  life  ;  it  stands  in  the  way  of  every  percep- 
tion, every  virtue.  There  is  no  making  ourselves  feel 
enough  astonishment  at  it.  That  the  occupations  or 
pastimes  of  life  should  have  no  motive,  is  understanda- 
ble ;  but — That  life  itself  should  have  no  motive — that 
we  neither  care  to  find  out  what  it  may  lead  to,  nor  to 
guard  against  its  being  for  ever  taken  away  from  us— . 
here  is  a  mystery  indeed.  For,  just  suppose  I  were 
able  to  call  at  this  moment  to  any  one  in  this  audience 
by  name,  and  to  tell  him  positively  that  I  knew  a  large 
estate  had  been  lately  left  to  him  on  some  curious  con- 
ditions ;  but  that,  though  I  knew  it  was  large,  I  did  not 
know  how  large,  nor  even  where  it  was — whether  in  the 
East  Indies  or  the  West,  or  in  England,  or  at  the  Antip- 
odes. I  only  knew  it  was  a  vast  estate,  and  that  there 
was  a  chance  of  his  losing  it  altogether  if  ho  did  not 
soon  find  out  on  what  terms  it  had  been  left  to  him. 
Suppose  I  were  able  to  say  this  positively  to  any  single 
man  in  this  audience,  and  he  knew  that  I  did  not  Bpeak 
without  warrant,  do  you  think  that  he  would  rest  con- 
tent with  that  vague  knowledge,  if  it  were  anywise  pos- 
sible to  obtain  more  ?  Would  he  not  give  every  energy 
to  find  some  trace  of  the  facts,  and  never  rest  till  he 


148  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

ascertained  where  this  place  was,  and  what  it  was  like  ? 
And  suppose  he  were  a  young  man,  and  all  he  could 
discover  by  his  best  endeavour  was,  that  the  estate  was 
never  to  be  his  at  all,  unless  he  persevered,  during  cer- 
tain years  of  probation,  in  an  orderly  and  industrious 
life  ;  but  that,  according  to  the  rightness  of  his  conduct, 
the  portion  of  the  estate  assigned  to  him  would  be 
greater  or  less,  so  that  it  literally  depended  on  his  be- 
haviour from  day  to  day  whether  he  got  ten  thousand  a 
year,  or  thirty  thousand  a  year,  or  nothing  whatever — 
would  you  not  think  it  strange  if  the  youth  never  troub- 
led himself  to  satisfy  the  conditions  in  any  way,  nor 
even  to  know  what  was  required  of  him,  but  lived 
exactly  as  he  chose,  and  never  inquired  whether  his 
chances  of  the  estate  were  increasing  or  passing  away  ? 
Well,  you  know  that  this  is  actually  and  literally  so 
with  the  greater  number  of  the  educated  persons  now 
living  in  Christian  countries.  Nearly  every  man  and 
woman,  in  any  company  such  as  this,  outwardly  pro- 
fesses to  believe — and  a  large  number  unquestionably 
think  they  believe — much  more  than  this  ;  not  only  that 
a  quite  unlimited  estate  is  in  prospect  for  them  if  they 
please  the  Holder  of  it,  but  that  the  infinite  contrary  of 
such  a  possession — an  estate  of  perpetual  misery,  is  in 


MYSTEKY   OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  AETS.  149 

store  for  them  if  they  displease  this  great  Land-Holder, 
this  great  Heaven-Holder.  And  yet  there  is  not  one  in 
a  thousand  of  these  human  souls  that  cares  to  think,  for 
ten  minutes  of  the  day,  where  this  estate  is,  or  how 
beautiful  it  is,  or  what  kind  of  life  they  are  to  lead  in 
it,  or  what  kind  of  life  they  must  lead  to  obtain  it. 

109.  You  fancy  that  you  care  to  know  this  :  so  little 
do  you  care  that,  probably,  at  this  moment  many  of  you 
are  displeased  with  me  for  talking  of  the  matter  !  You 
came  to  hear  about  the  Art  of  this  world,  not  about  the 
Life  of  the  next,  and  you  are  provoked  with  me  for  talk- 
ing of  what  you  can  hear  any  Sunday  in  church.  But 
do  not  be  afraid.  I  will  tell  you  something  before  you 
go  about  pictures,  and  carvings,  and  pottery,  and  what 
else  you  would  like  better  to  hear  of  than  the  other 
world.  Nay,  perhaps  you  say,  "  We  want  you  to  talk 
of  pictures  and  pottery,  because  we  are  sure  that  you 
know  something  of  them,  and  you  know  nothing  of  the 
other  world."  "Well — I  don't.  That  is  quite  true.  But 
the  very  strangeness  and  mystery  of  which  I  urge  you 
to  take  notice  is  in  this — that  I  do  not ; — nor  you  either. 
Can  you  answer  a  single  bold  question  unflinchingly 
about  that  other  world — Are  you  sure  there  is  a  heaven  .J 
Sure  there  is  a  hell?     Sure  that  men  are  dropping  be- 


150  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

fore  your  faces  through  the  pavements  of  these  streets 
into  eternal  fire,  or  sure  that  they  are  not  ?  Sure  that 
at  your  own  death  you  are  going  to  be  delivered  from 
all  sorrow,  to  be  endowed  with  all  virtue,  to  be  gifted 
with  all  felicity,  and  raised  into  perpetual  companion- 
ship with  a  King,  compared  to  whom  the  kings  of  the 
earth  are  as  grasshoppers,  and  the  nations  as  the  dust 
of  His  feet  ?  Are  you  sure  of  this  ?  or,  if  not  sure,  do 
any  of  us  so  much  as  care  to  make  it  sure  ?  and,  if  not, 
how  can  anything  that  we  do  be  right — how  can  any- 
thing we  think  be  wise  ;  what  honor  can  there  be  in  the 
arts  that  amuse  us,  or  what  profit  in  the  possessions 
that  please  ? 

Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life  ? 

110.  But  farther,  you  may,  perhaps,  think  it  a  bene- 
ficent ordinance  for  the  generality  of  men  that  they  do 
not,  with  earnestness  or  anxiety,  dwell  on  such  questions 
of  the  future  ;  because  the  business  of  the  day  could  not 
be  done  if  this  kind  of  thought  were  taken  by  all  of  us 
for  the  morrow.  Be  it  so  :  but  at  least  we  might  antici- 
pate that  the  greatest  and  wisest  of  us,  who  were  evidently 
the  appointed  teachers  of  the  rest,  would  set  themselves 
apart  to  seek  out  whatever  could  be  surely  known  of  the 
future  destinies  of  their  race ;  and  to  teach  this  in  no 


MYSTEEY   OF  LIFE   AND  ITS  AETS.  151 

rhetorical  or  ambiguous  manner,  but  in  the  plainest  and 
most  severely  earnest  words. 

Now,  tlie  highest  representatives  of  men  who  have 
thus  endeavoured,  during  the  Christian  era,  to  search  out 
these  deep  things,  and  relate  them,  are  Dante  and  Milton. 
There  are  none  who  for  earnestness  of  thought,  for  mas- 
tery of  word,  can  be  classed  with  these.  I  am  not  at 
present,  mind  you,  speaking  of  persons  set  apart  in  any 
priestly  or  pastoral  office,  to  deliver  creeds  to  us,  or  doc- 
trines ;  but  of  men  who  try  to  discover  and  set  forth,  as 
far  as  by  human  intellect  is  possible,  the  facts  of  the 
other  world.  Divines  may  perhaps  teach  us  how  to  ar- 
rive there,  but  only  these  two  poets  have  in  any  power- 
ful manner  striven  to  discover,  or  in  any  definite  words 
professed  to  tell,  what  we  shall  see  and  become  there  : 
or  how  those  upper  and  nether  worlds  are,  and  have 
been,  inhabited. 

111.  And  what  have  they  told  us  ?  Milton's  account 
of  the  most  important  event  in  his  whole  system  of  the 
universe,  the  fall  of  the  angels,  is  evidently  unbeliev- 
able to  himself ;  and  the  more  so,  that  it  is  wholly 
founded  on,  and  in  a  great  part  spoiled  and  degraded 
from,  Hesiod's  account  of  the  decisive  war  of  the  young- 
er gods  with  the  Titans.     The  rest  of  his  poem  is  a 


152  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

picturesque  drama,  in  which  every  artifice  of  invention 
is  visibly  and  consciously  employed ;  not  a  single  fact 
being,  for  an  instant,  conceived  as  tenable  by  any  living 
faith.  Dante's  conception  is  far  more  intense,  and,  by 
himself,  for  the  time,  not  to  be  escaped  from ;  it  is  in- 
deed a  vision,  but  a  vision  only,  and  that  one  of  the 
"wildest  that  ever  entranced  a  soul — a  dream  in  which 
every  grotesque  type  or  phantasy  of  heathen  tradition 
is  renewed,  and  adorned  ;  and  the  destinies  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  under  their  most  sacred  symbols,  become 
literally  subordinate  to  the  praise,  and  are  only  to  be 
understood  by  the  aid,  of  one  dear  Florentine  maiden. 

112.  I  tell  you  truly  that,  as  I  strive  more  with  this 
strange  lethargy  and  trance  in  myself,  and  awake  to  the 
meaning  and  power  of  life,  it  seems  daily  more  amazing 
to  me  that  men  such  as  these  should  dare  to  play  with 
the  most  precious  truths  (or  the  most  deadly  untruths), 
by  which  the  whole  human  race  listening  to  them  could 
be  informed,  or  deceived ; — all  the  world  their  audi- 
ences for  ever,  with  pleased  ear,  and  passionate  heart; 
■ — and  yet,  to  this  submissive  infinitude  of  souls,  and 
evermore  succeeding  and  succeeding  multitude,  hun- 
gry for  bread  of  life,  they  do  but  play  upon  sweetly 
modulated  pipes  ;  with  pompous  nomenclature  adorn 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS.  153 

tlie  councils  of  hell ;  touch  a  troubadour's  guitar  to  the 
courses  of  the  suns  ;  and  fill  the  openings  of  eternity, 
before  which  prophets  have  veiled  their  faces,  and 
which  angels  desire  to  look  into,  with  idle  puppets  of 
their  scholastic  imagination,  and  melancholy  lights  of 
frantic  faith  in  their  lost  mortal  love. 

Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life  ? 

113.  But  more.  We  have  to  remember  that  these  two 
great  teachers  were  both  of  them  warped  in  their  tem- 
per, and  thwarted  in  their  search  for  truth.  They  were 
men  of  intellectual  war,  unable,  through  darkness  of 
controversy,  or  stress  of  personal  grief,  to  discern  where 
their  own  ambition  modified  their  utterances  of  the 
moral  law ;  or  their  own  agony  mingled  with  their  anger 
at  its  violation.  But  greater  men  than  these  have  been — 
innocent-hearted — too  great  for  contest.  Men,  like  Ho- 
mer and  Shakespeare,  of  so  unrecognized  personality, 
that  it  disappears  in  future  ages,  and  becomes  ghostly, 
like  the  tradition  of  a  lost  heathen  god.  Men,  therefore, 
to  whose  unoffended,  uncondemning  sight,  the  whole  of 
human  nature  reveals  itself  in  a  pathetic  weakness,  with 
which  they  will  not  strive  ;  or  in  mournful  and  transi- 
tory strength,  which  they  dare  not  praise.  And  all  Pagan 
and  Christian  civilization  thus  becomes  subject  to  them. 


154  SESAJVEE   AXD  LILIES. 

It  does  not  matter  how  little,  or  how  much,  any  of  us 
hare  read,  either  of  Homer  or  Shakespeare  :  everything 
round  us,  in  substance,  or  in  thought,  has  been  moulded 
by  them.  All  Greek  gentlemen  were  educated  under 
Homer.  Ail  Roman  gentlemen,  by  Greek  literature. 
All  Italian,  and  French,  and  English  gentlemen,  by 
Eoman  literature,  and  by  its  principles.  Of  the  scope 
of  Shakespeare,  I  will  say  only,  that  the  intellectual 
measure  of  every  man  since  born,  in  the  domains  of  crea- 
tive thought,  may  be  assigned  to  him,  according  to  the 
degree  in  which  he  has  been  taught  by  Shakespeare. 
"Well,  what  do  these  two  men,  centres  of  moral  intelli- 
gence, deliver  to  us  of  conviction  respecting  what  it 
most  behoves  that  intelligence  to  grasp  ?  "What  is  their 
hope  ;  their  crown  of  rejoicing?  what  manner  of  exhor- 
tation have  they  for  us,  or  of  rebuke  ?  what  lies  next 
their  own  hearts,  and  dictates  their  undying  words  ? 
Have  they  any  peace  to  promise  to  our  unrest — any  re- 
demption to  our  misery  ? 

114  Take  Homer  first,  and  think  if  there  is  any  sad- 
der image  of  human  fate  than  the  great  Homeric  story. 
The  main  features  in  the  character  of  Achilles  are  its 
intense  desire  of  justice,  and  its  tenderness  of  affection. 
And  in  that  bitter  song  of  the  Iliad,  this  man,  though 


;     STEKY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  ARTS.  155 

aided  continually  by  the  wisest  of  the  gods,  and  burning 
■with  the  desire  of  justice  in  his  heart,  becomes  yet, 
through  ill  -governed  passion,  the  most  unjust  of  men  : 
and,  full  of  the  deepest  tenderness  in  his  heart,  becomes 
yet,  through  ill-governed  passion,  the  most  cruel  of  men. 
Intense  alike  in  love  and  in  friendship,  he  loses,  first  his 
mistress,  and  then  his  friend  ;  for  the  sake  of  the  one,  he 
surrenders  to  death  the  armies  of  his  own  land ;  for  the 
sake  of  the  other,  he  surrenders  all.  Will  a  man  lay 
down  his  life  for  his  friend?  Tea — even  for  his  dead 
friend,  this  Achilles,  though  goddess-born,  and  goddess- 
taught,  gives  up  his  kingdom,  his  country,  and  his  life — 
casts  alike  the  innocent  and  guilty,  with  himself,  into 
one  gulf  of  slaughter,  and  dies  at  last  by  the  hand  of  the 
basest  of  his  adversaries.  Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life  ? 
115.  But  what,  then,  is  the  message  to  us  of  our  own 
poet,  and  searcher  of  hearts,  after  fifteen  hundred  years 
of  Christian  faith  have  been  numbered  over  the  graves 
of  men?  Are  his  words  more  cheerful  than  the  Inn- 
then' s— is  his  hope  more  near— his  trust  more  sure— his 
reading  of  fate  more  happy  ?  Ah,  no  !  He  diners  from 
the  Heathen  poet  chiefly  in  this— that  he  recogniz. 
deliverance,  no  gods  nigh  at  hand  ;  and  that,  by  petty 
chance— bv  momentary  folly— by  broken  message— by 
7* 


156  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

fool's  tyranny — or  traitor's  snare,  the  strongest  and  most 
righteous  are  brought  to  their  ruin,  and  perish  without 
word  of  hope.  He  indeed,  as  part  of  his  rendering  of 
character,  ascribes  the  power  and  modesty  of  habitual 
devotion,  to  the  gentle  and  the  just.  The  death-bed  of 
Katharine  is  bright  with  vision  of  angels ;  and  the  great 
soldier-king,  standing  by  his  few  dead,  acknowledges  the 
presence  of  the  hand  that  can  save  alike  by  many  or  by 
few.  But  observe  that  from  those  who  with  deepest 
spirit,  meditate,  and  with  deeepest  passion,  mourn, 
there  are  no  such  words  as  these ;  nor  in  their  hearts 
are  any  such  consolations.  Instead  of  the  perpetual 
sense  of  the  helpful  presence  of  the  Deity,  which, 
through  all  heathen  tradition,  is  the  source  of  heroic 
strength,  in  battle,  in  exile,  and  in  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  we  find  only  in  the  great  Christian 
poet,  the  consciousness  of  a  moral  law,  through  which 
"the  gods  are  just,  and  of  our  pleasant  vices  make 
instruments  to  scourge  us  ; "  and  of  the  resolved  arbi- 
tration of  the  destinies,  that  conclude  into  precision  of 
doom  what  we  feebly  and  blindly  began ;  and  force  us, 
when  our  indiscretion  serves  us,  and  our  deepest  plots 
do  pall,  to  the  confession,  that  "  there's  a  divinity  that 
shapes  our  ends,  rough  hew  them  how  we  will,'* 


MTSTEKY   OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  AETS.  157 

Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life  ? 

116.  Be  it  so  then.  About  this  human  life  that  is  to 
be,  or  that  is,  the  wise  religious  men  tell  us  nothing 
that  we  can  trust ;  and  the  wise  contemplative  men, 
nothing  that  can  give  us  peace.  But  there  is  yet  a  third 
class,  to  whom  we  may  turn — the  wise  practical  men. 
"We  have  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  poets  who  sang  of  heaven, 
and  they  have  told  us  their  dreams.  ~We  have  listened 
to  the  poets  who  sang  of  earth,  and  they  have  chanted 
to  us  dirges,  and  words  of  despair.  But  there  is  one 
class  of  men  more  : — men,  not  capable  of  vision,  nor 
sensitive  to  sorrow,  but  firm  of  purpose — practised  in 
business :  learned  in  all  that  can  be,  (by  handling, — ) 
known.  Men  whose  hearts  and  hopes  are  wholly  in 
this  present  world,  from  whom,  therefore,  we  may  surely 
learn,  at  least,  how,  at  present,  conveniently  to  live  in 
it.  "What  will  they  say  to  us,  or  show  us  by  example  ? 
These  kings — these  councillors — these  statesmen  and 
builders  of  kingdoms — these  capitalists  and  men  of 
business,  who  weigh  the  earth,  and  the  dust  of  it,  in  a 
balance.  They  know  the  world,  surely  ;  and  what  is  the 
mystery  of  life  to  us,  is  none  to  them.  They  can  surely 
show  us  how  to  live,  while  we  live,  and  to  gather  out 
of  the  present  world  what  is  best. 


158  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

117.  I  think  I  can  best  tell  you  their  answer,  by  tell- 
ing you  a  dream  I  had  once.  For  though  I  am  no 
poet,  I  have  dreams  sometimes : — I  dreamed  I  was  at  a 
child's  May-day  party,  in  which  every  means  of  enter- 
tainment had  been  provided  for  them,  by  a  wise  and 
kind  host.  It  was  in  a  stately  house,  with  beautiful 
gardens  attached  to  it ;  and  the  children  had  been  set 
free  in  the  rooms  and  gardens,  with  no  care  whatever 
but  how  to  pass  their  afternoon  rejoicingly.  They  did 
not,  indeed,  know  much  about  what  was  to  happen  next 
day  ;  and  some  of  them,  I  thought,  were  a  little  fright- 
ened, because  there  was  a  chance  of  their  being  sent  to 
a  new  school  where  there  were  examinations  ;  but  they 
kept  the  thoughts  of  that  out  of  their  heads  as  well  as 
they  could,  and  resolved  to  enjoy  themselves.  The 
house,  I  said,  was  in  a  beautiful  garden,  and  in  the 
garden  were  all  kinds  of  flowers  ;  sweet  grassy  banks 
for  rest ;  and  smooth  lawns  for  play ;  and  pleasant 
streams  and  woods ;  and  rocky  places  for  climbing.  And 
the  children  were  happy  for  a  little  while,  but  presently 
they  separated  themselves  into  parties  ;  and  then  each 
party  declared,  it  would  have  a  piece  of  the  garden  for 
its  own,  and  that  none  of  the  others  should  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  that  piece.     Next,  they  quarrelled  vio- 


MYSTEET   OF  LIFE   AKD   ITS   AETS.  159 

lentlj,  which  pieces  they  would  have ;  and  at  last  the 
boys  took  up  the  thing,  as  boys  should  do,  "  practic- 
ally," and  fought  in  the  flower-beds  till  there  was  hardly 
a  flower  left  standing ;  then  they  trampled  down  each 
other's  bits  of  the  garden  out  of  spite  ;  and  the  girls 
cried  till  they  could  cry  no  more  ;  and  so  they  all  lay 
down  at  last  breathless  in  the  ruin,  and  waited  for  the 
time  when  they  were  to  be  taken  home  in  the  evening.'36' 
118.  Meanwhile,  the  children  in  the  house  had  been 
making  themselves  happy  also  in  their  manner.  For 
them,  there  had  been  provided  every  kind  of  in-doors 
pleasure :  there  was  music  for  them  to  dance  to ;  and 
the  library  was  open,  with  all  manner  of  amusing  books ; 
and  there  was  a  museum,  full  of  the  most  curious  shells, 
and  animals,  and  birds ;  and  there  was  a  workshop,  with 
lathes  and  carpenter's  tools,  for  the  ingenious  boys ;  and 
there  were  pretty  fantastic  dresses,  for  the  girls  to  dress 
in  ;  and  there  were  microscopes,  and  kaleidoscopes  ;  and 
whatever  toys  a  child  could  fancy ;  and  a  table,  in  the 
dining-room,  loaded  with  everything  nice  to  eat 

*  I  have  sometimes  been  asked  what  this  means.  I  intended  it  to 
set  forth  the  wisdom  of  men  in  war  contending  for  kingdoms,  and 
what  follows  to  set  forth  their  wisdom  in  peace,  contending  for 
wealth. 


160  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

But,  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  it  struck  two  or  three 
of  the  more  "practical"  children,  that  they  would  like 
some  of  the  brass-headed  nails  that  studded  the  chairs ; 
and  so  they  set  to  work  to  pull  them  out.  Presently, 
the  others,  who  were  reading,  or  looking  at  shells,  took 
a  fancy  to  do  the  like  ;  and,  in  a  little  while,  all  the 
children,  nearly,  were  spraining  their  fingers,  in  pulling 
out  brass-headed  nails.  With  all  that  they  could  pull 
out,  they  were  not  satisfied  ;  and  then,  everybody  wanted 
some  of  somebody  else's.  And  at  last  the  really  prac- 
tical and  sensible  ones  declared,  that  nothing  was  of  any 
real  consequence,  that  afternoon,  except  to  get  plenty 
of  brass-headed  nails ;  and  that  the  books,  and  the 
cakes,  and  the  microscopes  were  of  no  use  at  all  in  them- 
selves, but  only,  if  they  could  be  exchanged  for  nail- 
heads.  And,  at  last,  they  began  to  fight  for  nail-heads, 
as  the  others  fought  for  the  bits  of  garden.  Only  here 
and  there,  a  despised  one  shrank  away  into  a  corner, 
and  tried  to  get  a  little  quiet  with  a  book,  in  the  midst 
of  the  noise  ;  but  all  the  practical  ones  thought  of  noth- 
ing else  but  counting  nail-heads  all  the  afternoon — even 
though  they  knew  they  would  not  be  allowed  to  carry 
so  much  as  one  brass  knob  away  with  them.  But  no — 
it  was — "  who  has  most  nails  ?     I  have  a  hundred,  and 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  AETS.  161 

you  have  fifty;  or,  I  have  a  thousand  and  you  have 
two.  I  must  have  as  many  as  you  before  I  leave  the 
house,  or  I  cannot  possibly  go  home  in  peace."  At 
last,  they  made  so  much  noise  that  I  awoke,  and 
thought  to  myself,  "What  a  false  dream  that  is,  of 
children."  The  child  is  the  father  of  the  man ;  and 
wiser.  Children  never  do  such  foolish  things.  Only 
men  do. 

119.  But  there  is  yet  one  last  class  of  persons  to  be 
interrogated.  The  wise  religious  men  we  have  asked 
in  vain  ;  the  wise  contemplative  men,  in  vain ;  the  wise 
worldly  men,  in  vain.  But  there  is  another  group  yet. 
In  the  midst  of  this  vanity  of  empty  religion — of  tragic 
contemplation — of  wrathful  and  wretched  ambition,  and 
dispute  for  dust,  there  is  yet  one  great  group  of  persons, 
by  whom  all  these  disputers  live — the  persons  who  have 
determined,  or  have  had  it  by  a  beneficent  Providence 
determined  for  them,  that  they  will  do  something  use- 
ful ;  that  whatever  may  be  prepared  for  them  hereafter, 
or  happen  to  them  here,  they  will,  at  least,  deserve  the 
food  that  God  gives  them  by  winning  it  honourably; 
and  that,  however  fallen  from  the  purity,  or  far  from 
the  peace,  of  Eden,  they  will  carry  out  the  duty  of 
human  dominion,  though  they  have  lost  its  felicity  ;  and 


162  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

dress  and  keej)  the  wilderness,  though  they  no  more  can 
dress  or  keep  the  garden. 

These, — hewers  of  wood,  and  drawers  of  water — these 
bent  under  burdens,  or  torn  of  scourges — these,  that 
dig  and  weave — that  plant  and  build ;  workers  in  wood, 
and  in  marble,  and  in  iron — by  whom  all  food,  clothing, 
habitation,  furniture,  and  means  of  delight  are  produced, 
for  themselves,  and  for  all  men  beside ;  men,  whose 
deeds  are  good,  though  their  words  may  be  few ;  men, 
whose  lives  are  serviceable,  be  they  never  so  short,  and 
worthy  of  honour,  be  they  never  so  humble  ; — from 
these,  surely  at  least,  we  may  receive  some  clear  mes- 
sage of  teaching :  and  pierce,  for  an  instant,  into  the 
mystery  of  life,  and  of  its  arts. 

120.  Yes  ;  from  these,  at  last,  we  do  receive  a  lesson. 
But  I  grieve  to  say,  or  rather — for  that  is  the  deeper 
truth  of  the  matter — I  rejoice  to  say — this  message  of 
theirs  can  only  be  received  by  joining  them — not  by 
thinking  about  them. 

You  sent  for  me  to  talk  to  you  of  art ;  and  I  have 
obeyed  you  in  coming.  But  the  main  thing  I  have  to 
tell  you  is, — that  art  must  not  be  talked  about.  The 
fact  that  there  is  talk  about  it  at  all,  signifies  that  it  is 
ill  done,  or  cannot  be  done.    No  true  painter  ever  speaks, 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE   AND  ITS  ARTS.  163 

or  ever  lias  spoken,  much  of  his  art  The  greatest  speak 
nothing.  Even  Reynolds  is  no  exception,  for  he  wrote 
of  all  that  he  could  not  himself  do,  and  was  utterly 
silent  respecting  all  that  he  himself  did. 

The  moment  a  man  can  really  do  his  work,  he  be- 
comes speechless  about  it.  All  words  become  idle  to 
him — all  theories. 

121.  Does  a  bird  need  to  theorize  about  building  its 
nest,  or  boast  of  it  when  built  ?  All  good  work  is  es- 
sentially done  that  way — without  hesitation,  without 
difficulty,  without  boasting  ;  and  in  the  doers  of  the 
best,  there  is  an  inner  and  involuntary  power  which 
approximates  literally  to  the  instinct  of  an  animal — nay, 
I  am  'certain  that  in  the  most  perfect  human  artists, 
reason  does  not  supersede  instinct,  but  is  added  to  an 
instinct  as  much  more  divine  than  that  of  the  lower 
animals  as  the  human  body  is  more  beautiful  than 
theirs;  that  a  great  singer  sings  not  with  less  instinct 
than  the  nightingale,  but  with  more — only  more  various, 
applicable,  and  governable  ;  that  a  great  architect  doea 
not  build  with  less  instinct  than  the  beaver  or  the  bee, 
but  with  more — with  an  innate  cunning  of  proportion 
that  embraces  all  beauty,  and  a  divine  ingenuity  of  skill 
that  improvises  all  construction.    But  be  that  aa  if  may 


164  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

— be  the  instinct  less  or  more  than  that  of  inferior  ani- 
mals— like  or  unlike  theirs,  still  the  human  art  is 
dependent  on  that  first,  and  then  upon  an  amount  of 
practice,  of  science, — and  of  imagination  disciplined  by 
thought,  which  the  true  possessor  of  it  knows  to  be  in- 
communicable, and  the  true  critic  of  it,  inexplicable, 
except  through  long  process  of  laborious  years.  That 
journey  of  life's  conquest,  in  which  hills  over  hills,  and 
Alps  on  Alps  arose,  and  sank, — do  you  think  you  can 
make  another  trace  it  painlessly,  by  talking  ?  Why,  you 
cannot  even  carry  us  up  an  Alp,  by  talking.  You  can  guide 
us  up  it,  step  by  step,  no  otherwise — even  so,  best 
silently.  You  girls,  who  have  been  among  the  hills, 
know  how  the  bad  guide  chatters  and  gesticulates,  and 
it  is  "  put  your  foot  here,"  and  "  mind  how  you  balance 
yourself  there ;  "  but  the  good  guide  walks  on  quietly, 
without  a  word,  only  with  his  eyes  on  you  when  need  is, 
and  his  arm  like  an  iron  bar,  if  need  be. 

122.  In  that  slow  way,  also,  art  can  be  taught — if  you 
have  faith  in  your  guide,  and  will  let  his  arm  be  to  you 
as  an  iron  bar  when  need  is.  But  in  what  teacher  of  art 
have  you  such  faith  ?  Certainly  not  in  me  ;  for,  as  I 
told  you  at  first,  I  know  well  enough  it  is  only  because 
you  think  I  can  talk,  not  because  you  think  I  know  my 


MYSTERY   OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  AETS.  1G5 

business,  that  you  let  me  speak  to  you  at  all.  If  I  were 
to  tell  you  anything  that  seemed  to  you  strange,  you 
would  not  believe  it,  and  yet  it  would  only  be  in  telling 
you  strange  things  that  I  could  be  of  use  to  you.  I 
could  be  of  great  use  to  you — infinite  use,  with  brief 
saying,  if  you  would  believe  it ;  but  you  would  not,  just 
because  the  thing  that  would  be  of  real  use  would  dis- 
please you.  You  are  all  wild,  for  instance,  with  admir- 
ation of  Gustave  Dore.  "Well,  suppose  I  were  to  tell  you 
in  the  strongest  terms  I  could  use,  that  Gustave  Dore's 
art  was  bad — bad,  not  in  weakness, — not  in  failure, — 
but  bad  with  dreadful  power — the  power  of  the  Furies 
and  the  Harpies  mingled,  enraging,  and  polluting  ;  that 
so  long  as  you  looked  at  it,  no  perception  of  pure  or 
beautiful  art  was  possible  for  you.  Suppose  I  were  to 
tell  you  that !  What  would  be  the  use  ?  Would  you  look 
at  Gustave  Dore  less  ?  Kather  more,  I  fancy.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  could  soon  put  you  into  good  humour  with 
me,  if  I  chose.  I  know  well  enough  what  you  like,  and 
how  to  praise  it  to  your  better  liking.  I  could  talk  to 
you  about  moonlight,  and  twilight,  and  spring  flowers, 
and  autumn  leaves,  and  the  Madonnas  of  Raphael  —how 
motherly  !  and  the  Sibyls  of  Michael  Angelo — how  ma- 
jestic! and  the  Saints  of  Angelico — how  pious  !  and  the 


166  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

Cherubs  of  Correggio — how  delicious  !  Old  as  I  am,  1 
could  play  you  a  tune  on  the  harp  yet,  that  you  would 
dance  to.  But  neither  you  nor  I  should  be  a  bit  the 
better  or  wiser ;  or,  if  we  were,  our  increased  wisdom 
could  be  of  no  practical  effect.  For,  indeed,  the  arts,  as 
regards  teachableness,  differ  from  the  sciences  also  in 
this,  that  their  power  is  founded  not  merely  on  facts 
which  can.be  communicated,  but  on  dispositions  which 
require  to  be  created.  Art  is  neither  to  be  achieved  by 
effort  of  thinking,  nor  explained  by  accuracy  of  speaking. 
It  is  the  instinctive  and  necessary  result  of  powers 
which  can  only  be  developed  through  the  mind  of  suc- 
cessive generations,  and  which  finally  burst  into  life 
under  social  conditions  as  slow  of  growth  as  the  facul- 
ties they  regulate.  Whole  seras  of  mighty  history  are 
summed,  and  the  passions  of  dead  myriads  are  concen- 
trated, in  the  existence  of  a  noble  art ;  and  if  that  noble 
art  were  among  us,  we  should  feel  it  and  rejoice  ;  not 
oaring  in  the  least  to  hear  lectures  on  it ;  and  since  it  is 
not  among  us,  be  assured  we  have  to  go  back  to  the 
root  of  it,  or,  at  least,  to  the  place  where  the  stock  of  it 
is  yet  alive,  and  the  branches  began  to  die. 

123.  And  now,  may  I  have  your  pardon  for  pointing 
out,  partly  with  reference  to  matters  which  are  at  this 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  ARTS.  1G7 

time  of  greater  moment  than  the  arts — that  if  we  under- 
took such  recession  to  the  vital  germ  of  national  arts 
that  have  decayed,  we  should  find  a  more  singular  arrest 
of  their  power  in  Ireland  than  in  any  other  European 
country.      For  in  the  eighth  century,  Ireland  possessed 
a  school  of  art  in  her  manuscripts  and  sculpture,  which, 
in  many  of  its  qualities — apparently  in  all  essential 
qualities  of   decorative    invention — was    quite  without 
rival ;  seeming  as  if  it  might  have  advanced  to  the  high- 
est triumphs  in  architecture  and  in  painting.    But  there 
was  one  fatal  flaw  in  its  nature,  by  which  it  was  stayed, 
and  stayed  with  a  conspicuousness  of  pause  to  which 
there  is  no  parallel:  so  that,  long  ago,  in  tracing  the 
progress  of  European  schools  from  infancy  tr>  ytrength, 
I  chose  for  the  students  of  Kensington,  in  a  lecture 
since  published,  two  characteristic  examples  of  early 
art,  of  equal  skill ;  but  in  the  one  case,  skill  which  was 
progressive — in  the  other,  skill  which  was  at  pause.   In 
the  one  case,  it  was  work  receptive  of  correction — hun- 
gry for  correction — and  in  the  other,  work  which  inher- 
ently rejected  correction.    I  chose  for  them  a  corrigible 
Eve,  and  an  incorrigible  Angel,  and  I  grieve  to  say  that 
the  incorrigible  Angel  was  also  an  Irish  angel !  - 
*  See  The  Two  Paths,  p.  27. 


168  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

124.  And  the  fatal  difference  lay  wholly  in  this.  In 
both  pieces  of  art  there  was  an  equal  falling  short  of  the 
needs  of  fact ;  but  the  Lornbardic  Eve  knew  she  was  in 
the  wrong,  and  the  Irish  Angel  thought  himself  all 
right.  The  eager  Lornbardic  sculptor,  though  firmly 
insisting  on  his  childish  idea,  yet  showed  in  the  irregu- 
lar broken  touches  of  the  features,  and  the  imperfect 
struggle  for  softer  lines  in  the  form,  a  perception  of 
beauty  and  law  that  he  could  not  render ;  there  was  the 
strain  of  effort,  under  conscious  imperfection,  in  every 
line.  But  the  Irish  missal-painter  had  drawn  his  angel 
with  no  sense  of  failure,  in  happy  complacency,  and  put 
red  dots  into  the  palms  of  each  hand,  and  rounded  the 
eyes  into  perfect  circles,  and,  I  regret  to  say,  left  the 
mouth  out  altogether,  with  perfect  satisfaction  to  him- 
self. 

125.  May  I  without  offence  ask  you  to  consider 
whether  this  mode  of  arrest  in  ancient  Irish  art  may 
not  be  indicative  of  points  of  character  which  even  yet, 
in  some  measure,  arrest  your  national  power  ?  I  have 
seen  much  of  Irish  character,  and  have  watched  it 
closely,  for  I  have  also  much  loved  it.  And  I  think  the 
form  of  failure  to  which  it  is  most  liable  is  this,  that 
being  generous-hearted,  and  wholly  intending  always  to 


MYSTEEY   OF  LIFE   AND   ITS  ARTS.  169 

do  right,  it  does  not  attend  to  the  external  laws  of  right, 
but  thinks  it  must  necessarily  do  right  because  it  means 
to  do  so,  and  therefore  does  wrong  without  finding  it 
out ;  and  then  when  the  consequences  of  its  wrong  come 
upon  it,  or  upon  others  connected  with  it,  it  cannot  con- 
ceive that  the  wrong  is  in  anywise  of  its  causing  or  of 
its  doing,  but  flies  into  wrath,  and  a  strange  agony  of 
desire  for  justice,  as  feeling  itself  wholly  innocent, 
which  leads  it  farther  astray,  until  there  is  nothing  that 
it  is  not  capable  of  doing  with  a  good  conscience. 

126.  But  mind,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that,  in  past  or 
present  relations  between  Ireland  and  England,  you 
have  been  wrong,  and  we  right.  Far  from  that,  I  be- 
lieve that  in  all  great  questions  of  principle,  and  in  all 
details  of  administration  of  law,  you  have  been  usually 
right,  and  we  wrong ;  sometimes  in  misunderstanding 
you,  sometimes  in  resolute  iniquity  to  you.  Neverthe- 
less, in  all  disputes  between  states,  though  the  strongest 
is  nearly  always  mainly  in  the  wrong,  the  weaker  is 
often  so  in  a  minor  degree  ;  and  I  think  we  sometimes 
admit  the  possibility  of  our  being  in  error,  and  you 
never  do. 

127.  And  now,  returning  to  the  broader  question 
what  these  arts  and  labours  of  life  have  to  teach  us  of 


170  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

its  mystery,  this  is  the  first  of  their  lessons — that  the 
more  beautiful  the  art,  the  more  it  is  essentially  the 
work  of  people  who  feel  themselves  icrong ; — who  are 
striving  for  the  fulfilment  of  a  law,  and  the  grasp  of  a 
loveliness,  which  they  have  not  yet  attained,  which  they 
feel  even  farther  and  farther  from  attaining,  the  more 
they  strive  for  it.  And  yet,  in  still  deeper  sense,  it  is 
the  work  of  people  who  know  also  that  they  are  right. 
The  very  sense  of  inevitable  error  from  their  purpose 
marks  the  perfectness  of  that  purpose,  and  the  continued 
sense  of  failure  arises  from  the  continued  opening  of 
the  eyes  more  clearly  to  all  the  sacredest  laws  of  truth. 
128.  This  is  one  lesson.  The  second  is  a  very  plain, 
and  greatly  precious  one,  namely  : — that  whenever  the 
arts  and  labours  of  life  are  fulfilled  in  this  spirit  of 
striving  against  misrule,  and  doing  whatever  we  have 
to  do,  honourably  and  perfectly,  they  invariably  bring 
happiness,  as  much  as  seems  possible  to  the  nature  of 
man.  In  all  other  paths,  by  which  that  happiness  is 
pursued,  there  is  disappointment,  or  destruction :  for 
ambition  and  for  passion  there  is  no  rest — no  fruition ; 
the  fairest  pleasures  of  youth  perish  in  a  darkness 
greater  than  their  past  light ;  and  the  loftiest  and  purest 
love  too  often  does  but  inflame  the  cloud  of  life  with 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  AETS.  171 

endless  fire  of  pain.  But,  ascending  from  lowest  to 
highest,  through  every  scale  of  human  industry,  that 
industry  worthily  followed,  gives  peace.  Ask  the  la- 
bourer in  the  field,  at  the  forge,  or  in  the  mine  ;  ask  the 
patient,  delicate-fingered  artisan,  or  the  strong-armed, 
fiery-hearted  worker  in  bronze,  and  in  marble,  and  with 
the  colours  of  light ;  and  none  of  these,  who  are  true 
workmen,  will  ever  tell  you,  that  they  have  found  the 
law  of  heaven  an  unkind  one — that  in  the  sweat  of  their 
face  they  should  eat  bread,  till  they  return  to  the 
ground;  nor  that  they  ever  found  it  an  unrewarded 
obedience,  if,  indeed,  it  was  rendered  faithfully  to  the 
command — "Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do — do  it 
with  thy  might." 

129.  These  are  the  two  great  and  constant  lessons 
which  our  labourers  teach  us  of  the  mystery  of  life. 
But  there  is  another,  and  a  sadder  one,  which  they  can- 
not teach  us,  which  we  must  read  on  their  tombstones. 

"Do  it  with  thy  might."  There  have  been  myriads 
upon  myriads  of  human  creatures  who  have  obeyed  this 
law — who  have  put  every  breath  and  nerve  of  their 
being  into  its  toil — who  have  devoted  every  hour,  and 
exhausted  every  faculty — who  have  bequeathed  their 
unaccomplished  thoughts  at  death — who  being  dead, 


172  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

have  yet  spoken,  by  majesty  of  memory,  and  strength 
of  example.  And,  at  last,  what  has  all  this  "Might"  of 
humanity  accomplished,  in  six  thousand  years  of  labour 
and  sorrow  ?  What  has  it  done  ?  Take  the  three  chief 
occupations  and  arts  of  men,  one  by  one,  and  count 
their  achievements.  Begin  with  the  first — the  lord  of 
thein  all — agriculture.  Six  thousand  years  have  passed 
since  we  were  set  to  till  the  ground,  from  which  we  were 
taken.  How  much  of  it  is  tilled  ?  How  much  of  that 
which  is,  wisely  or  well  ?  In  the  very  centre  and  chief 
garden  of  Europe — where  the  two  forms  of  parent 
Christianity  have  had  their  fortresses — where  the  noble 
Catholics  of  the  Forest  Cantons,  and  the  noble  Protest- 
ants of  the  Vaudois  valleys,  have  maintained,  for  date- 
less ages,  their  faiths  and  liberties — there  the  unchecked 
Alpine  rivers  yet  run  wild  in  devastation :  and  the 
marshes,  which  a  few  hundred  men  could  redeem  with 
a  year's  labour,  still  blast  their  helpless  inhabitants  into 
fevered  idiotism.  That  is  so,  in  the  centre  of  Europe  ! 
"While,  on  the  near  coast  of  Africa,  once  the  Garden  of 
the  Hesperides,  an  Arab  woman,  but  a  few  sunsets  since, 
ate  her  child,  for  famine.  And,  with  all  the  treasures 
of  the  East  at  our  feet,  we,  in  our  own  dominion,  could 
not  find  a  few  grains  of  rice,  for  a  people  that  asked  of 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE   AND   ITS  AETS.  173 

us  no  more  ;  but  stood  by,  and  saw  five  hundred  thou- 
sand of  them  perish  of  hunger. 

130.  Then,  after  agriculture,  the  art  of  kings,  take 
the  next  head  of  human  arts — weaving ;  the  art  of 
queens,  honored  of  all  noble  Heathen  women,  in  the 
person  of  their  virgin  goddess — honoured  of  all  Hebrew 
women,  by  the  word  of  their  wisest  king — "  She  layeth 
her  hands  to  the  spindle,  and  her  hands  hold  the  dis- 
taff; she  stretcheth  out  her  hand  to  the  poor.  She  is 
not  afraid  of  the  snow  for  her  household,  for  all  her 
household  are  clothed  with  scarlet.  She  maketh  herself 
covering  of  tapestry,  her  clothing  is  silk  and  purple. 
She  maketh  fine  linen,  and  selleth  it,  and  delivereth 
girdles  to  the  merchant."  What  have  we  done  in  all 
these  thousands  of  years  with  this  bright  art  of  Greek 
maid  and  Christian  matron?  Six  thousand  years  of 
weaving,  and  have  we  learned  to  weave  ?  Might  not 
every  naked  wall  have  been  purple  with  tapestry,  and 
every  feeble  breast  fenced  with  sweet  colours  from  the 
cold  ?  What  have  we  done  ?  Our  fingers  are  too  few, 
it  seems,  to  twist  together  some  poor  covering  for  our 
bodies.  We  set  our  streams  to  work  for  us,  and  choke 
the  air  with  fire,  to  turn  our  spinning-wheels — and,— 
are  we  yet  clothed  ?    Are  not  the  streets  of  the  capitals 


174  SESAME   AND   ULIES. 

of  Europe  foul  with  the  sale  of  cast  clouts  and  rotten 
rags  ?  Is  not  the  beauty  of  your  sweet  children  left  in 
wretchedness  of  disgrace,  while,  with  better  honour, 
nature  clothes  the  brood  of  the  bird  in  its  nest,  and  the 
suckling  of  the  wolf  in  her  den  ?  And  does  not  every 
winter's  snow  robe  what  you  have  not  robed,  and  shroud 
what  you  have  not  shrouded  ;  and  every  winter's  wind 
bear  up  to  heaven  its  wasted  souls,  to  witness  against 
you  hereafter,  by  the  voice  of  their  Christ, — "I  was 
naked,  and  ye  clothed  me  not  ?  " 

131.  Lastly — take  the  Art  of  Building — the  strongest 
— proudest — most  orderly — most  enduring  of  the  arts 
of  man,  that,  of  which  the  produce  is  in  the  surest  man- 
ner accumulative,  and  need  not  perish,  or  be  replaced ; 
but  if  once  well  done,  will  stand  more  strongly  than  the 
unbalanced  rocks — more  prevalently  than  the  crumb- 
ling hills.  The  art  which  is  associated  with  all  civic 
pride  and  sacred  principle  ;  with  which  men  record 
their  power — satisfy  their  enthusiasm — make  sure  their 
defence — define  and  make  dear  their  habitation.  And, 
in  six  thousand  years  of  building,  what  have  we  done  ? 
Of  the  greater  part  of  all  that  skill  and  strength,  no  ves- 
tige is  left,  but  fallen  stones,  that  encumber  th&  fields 
and  impede  the  streams.     But,  from  this  waste  of  dis- 


MTSTEEY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  AETS.  175 

order,  and  of  time,  and  of  rage,  what  is  left  to  us  ? 
Constructive  and  progressive  creatures,  that  we  are, 
with  ruling  brains,  and  forming  hands,  capable  of  fel- 
lowship, and  thirsting  for  fame,  can  we  not  contend,  in 
comfort,  with  the  insects  of  the  forest,  or,  in  achieve- 
ment, with  the  worm  of  the  sea.  The  white  surf  rages 
in  vain  against  the  ramparts  built  by  poor  atoms  of 
scarcely  nascent  life ;  but  only  ridges  of  formless  ruin 
mark  the  places  where  once  dwelt  our  noblest  multi- 
tudes. The  ant  and  the  moth  have  cells  for  each  of 
their  young,  but  our  little  ones  lie  in  festering  heaps, 
in  homes  that  consume  them  like  graves  ;  and  night  by 
night,  from  the  corners  of  our  streets,  rises  up  the  cry 
of  the  homeless — "I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me 
not  in." 

132.  Must  it  be  always  thus?  Is  our  life  for  ever 
to  be  without  profit — without  possession  ?  Shall  the 
strength  of  its  generations  be  as  barren  as  death ;  or 
cast  away  their  labour,  as  the  wild  figtree  casts  her  un- 
timely figs  ?  Is  it  all  a  dream  then — the  desire  of  the 
eyes  and  the  pride  of  life — or,  if  it  be,  might  we  not  live 
in  nobler  dream  than  this  ?  The  poets  and  prophets, 
the  wise  men,  and  the  scribes,  though  they  have  told  us 
nothing  about  a  life  to  come,  have  told  us  much  about 


176  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

the  life  that  is  now.  They  have  had — they  also,— their 
dreams,  and  we  have  laughed  at  them.  They  have 
dreamed  of  mercy,  and  of  justice  ;  they  have  dreamed 
of  peace  and  good-will ;  they  have  dreamed  of  labour 
undisappointed,  and  of  rest  undisturbed  ;  they  have 
dreamed  of  fulness  in  harvest,  and  overflowing  in  store  ; 
they  have  dreamed  of  wisdom  in  council,  and  of  provi- 
dence in  law ;  of  gladness  of  parents,  and  strength  of 
children,  and  glory  of  grey  hairs.  And  at  these  visions 
of  theirs  we  have  mocked,  and  held  them  for  idle  and 
vain,  unreal  and  unaccomplishable.  What  have  we 
accomplished  with  our  realities  ?  Is  this  what  has  come 
of  our  worldly  wisdom,  tried  against  their  folly  ?  this 
our  mightiest  possible,  against  their  impotent  ideal  ?  or 
have  we  only  wandered  among  the  spectra  of  a  baser 
felicity,  and  chased  phantoms  of  the  tombs,  instead  of 
visions  of  the  Almighty ;  and  walked  after  the  imagina- 
tions of  our  evil  hearts,  instead  of  after  the  counsels  of 
Eternity,  until  our  lives — not  in  the  likeness  of  the 
cloud  of  heaven,  but  of  the  smoke  of  hell — have  become 
"  as  a  vapour,  that  appeareth  for  a  little  time,  and  then 
vanisheth  away  ?  " 

133.  Does  it  vanish  then  ?     Are  you  sure  of  that  ? — 
sure,  that  the  nothingness  of  the  grave  will  be  a  rest 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS  AETS.  177 

from  this  troubled  nothingness ;  and  that  the  coiling 
shadow,  which  disquiets  itself  in  vain,  cannot  change 
into  the  smoke  of  the  torment  that  ascends  for  ever? 
Will  any  answer  that  they  are  sure  of  it,  and  that  there 
is  no  fear,  nor  hope,  nor  desire,  nor  labour,  whither 
they  go  ?  Be  it  so  ;  will  you  not,  then,  make  as  sure  of 
the  Life,  that  now  is,  as  you  are  of  the  Death  that  is  to 
come  ?  Your  hearts  are  wholly  in  this  world — will  you 
not  give  them  to  it  wisely,  as  well  as  perfectly  ?  And  see, 
first  of  all,  that  you  have  hearts,  and  sound  hearts,  too, 
to  give.  Because  you  have  no  heaven  to  look  for,  is  that 
any  reason  that  you  should  remain  ignorant  of  this  won- 
derful and  infinite  earth,  which  is  firmly  and  instantly 
given  you  in  possession  ?  Although  your  days  are  num- 
bered, and  the  following  darkness  sure,  is  it  necessary 
that  you  should  share  the  degradation  of  the  brute,  be- 
cause you  are  condemned  to  its  mortality  ;  or  live  the  life 
of  the  moth,  and  of  the  worm,  because  you  are  to  com- 
panion them  in  the  dust  ?  Not  so  ;  we  may  have  but  a  few 
thousands  of  days  to  spend,  perhaps  hundreds  only— 
perhaps  tens ;  nay,  the  longest  of  our  time  and  best, 
looked  back  on,  will  be  but  as  a  moment,  as  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye ;  still,  we  are  men,  not  insects  ;  we  are 
living  spirits,  not  passing  clouds.  "  He  maketh  the  winds 


178  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

His  messengers ;  the  momentary  fire,  His  minister ;  "  and 
shall  we  do  less  than  these  ?  Let  us  do  the  work  of  men 
while  we  bear  the  form  of  them  ;  and,  as  we  snatch  our 
narrow  portion  of  time  out  of  Eternity,  snatch  also  our 
narrow  inheritance  of  passion  out  of  Immortality — 
even  though  our  lives  be  as  a  vapour,  that  appeareth  for 
a  little  time,  and  then  vanisheth  away. 

134.  But  there  are  some  of  you  who  believe  not  this — 
who  think  this  cloud  of  life  has  no  such  close — that  it  is 
to  float,  revealed  and  illumined,  upon  the  floor  of  heav- 
en, in  the  day  when  He  cometh  with  clouds,  and  every 
eye  shall  see  Him.  Some  day,  you  believe,  within  these 
five,  or  ten,  or  twenty  years,  for  every  one  of  us  the 
judgment  will  be  set,  and  the  books  opened.  If  that  be 
true,  far  more  than  that  must  be  true.  Is  there  but  one 
day  of  judgment  ?  Why,  for  us  every  day  is  a  day  of 
judgment — every  day  is  a  Dies  Irse,  and  writes  its  irrev- 
ocable verdict  in  the  flame  of  its  West.  Think  you  that 
judgment  waits  till  the  doors  of  the  grave  are  opened  ?  It 
waits  at  the  doors  of  your  houses — it  waits  at  the  corners 
of  your  streets ;  we  are  in  the  midst  of  judgment — the 
insects  that  we  crush  are  our  judges — the  moments  we 
fret  away  are  our  judges — the  elements  that  feed  us, 
judge,  as  they  minister — and  the  pleasures  that  deceive 


MYSTEBY   OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  AETS.  179 

us,  judge  as  they  indulge.  Let  us,  for  our  lives,  do  the 
work  of  Men  while  we  bear  the  Form  of  them,  if  indeed 
those  lives  are  Not  as  a  vapour,  and  do  Not  vanish  away. 
135.  "  The  work  of  men  " — and  what  is  that?  "Well, 
we  may  any  of  us  know  very  quickly,  on  the  condition 
of  being  wholly  ready  to  do  it.  But  many  of  us  are  for 
the  most  part  thinking,  not  of  what  we  are  to  do,  but  of 
what  we  are  to  get ;  and  the  best  of  us  are  sunk  into  the 
sin  of  Ananias,  and  it  is  a  mortal  one — we  want  to  keep 
back  part  of  the  price  ;  and  we  continually  talk  of  taking 
up  our  cross,  as  if  the  only  harm  in  a  cross  was  the  weight 
of  it — as  if  it  was  only  a  thing  to  be  carried,  instead  of 
to  be— crucified  upon.  "  They  that  are  His  have  cruci- 
fied the  flesh,  with  the  affections  and  lusts."  Does  that 
mean,  think  you,  that  in  time  of  national  distress,  of 
religious  trial,  of  crisis  for  every  interest  and  hope  of 
humanity — none  of  us  will  cease  jesting,  none  cease 
idling,  none  put  themselves  to  any  wholesome  work, 
none  take  so  much  as  a  tag  of  lace  off  their  footman's 
coats,  to  save  the  world  ?  Or  does  it  rather  mean,  that 
they  are  ready  to  leave  houses,  lands,  and  kindreds — 
yes,  and  life,  if  need  be  ?  Life  ! — some  of  us  are  ready 
enough  to  throw  that  away,  joyless  as  we  have  made  it. 
But  "  station  in  Life  " — how  many  of  us  are  ready  to 


160  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

quit  that  ?  Is  it  not  always  the  great  objection,  where 
there  is  question  of  finding  something  useful  to  do— 
"  We  cannot  leave  our  stations  in  Life  ?  " 

Those  of  us  who  really  cannot — that  is  to  say,  who 
can  only  maintain  themselves  by  continuing  in  some 
business  or  salaried  office,  have  already  something  to 
do ;  and  all  that  they  have  to  see  to,  is  that  they  do  it 
honestly  and  with  all  their  might.  But  with  most  peo- 
ple who  use  that  apology,  "  remaining  in  the  station  of 
life  to  which  Providence  has  called  them,"  means  keep- 
ing all  the  carriages,  and  all  the  footmen  and  large 
houses  they  can  possibly  pay  for ;  and,  once  for  all,  I 
say  that  if  ever  Providence  did  put  them  into  stations 
of  that  sort — which  is  not  at  all  a  matter  of  certainty — 
Providence  is  just  now  very  distinctly  calling  them  out 
again.  Levi's  station  in  life  was  the  receipt  of  custom ; 
and  Peter's,  the  shore  of  Galilee ;  and  Paul's,  the  ante- 
chambers of  the  High  Priest, — which  "  station  in  life  " 
each  had  to  leave,  with  brief  notice. 

And,  whatever  our  station  in  life  may  be,  at  this  crisis, 
those  of  us  who  mean  to  fulfil  our  duty  ought,  first,  to 
live  on  as  little  as  we  can ;  and,  secondly,  to  do  all  the 
wholesome  work  for  it  we  can,  and  to  spend  all  we  can 
spare  in  doing  all  the  sure  good  we  can. 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE   AND   ITS  ARTS.  181 

And  sure  good  is  first  in  feeding  people,  then  in  dress- 
ing people,  then  in  lodging  people,  and  lastly  in  rightly 
pleasing  people,  with  arts,  or  sciences,  or  any  other 
subject  of  thought. 

136.  I  say  first  in  feeding ;  and,  once  for  all,  do  not 
let  yourselves  be  deceived  by  any  of  the  common  talk 
of  "  indiscriminate  charity."  The  order  to  us  is  not  to 
feed  the  deserving  hungry,  nor  the  industrious  hungry, 
nor  the  amiable  and  well-intentioned  hungry,  but  simply 
to  feed  the  hungry.  It  is  quite  true,  infallibly  true, 
that  if  any  man  will  not  work,  neither  should  he  eat — 
think  of  that,  and  every  time  you  sit  down  to  your  din- 
ner, ladies  and  gentlemen,  say  solemnly,  before  you  ask 
a  blessing,  "  How  much  work  have  I  done  to-day  for  my 
dinner  ?  "  But  the  proper  way  to  enforce  that  order  on 
those  below  you,  as  well  as  on  yourselves,  is  not  to  leave 
vagabonds  and  honest  people  to  starve  together,  but 
very  distinctly  to  discern  and  seize  your  vagabond ;  and 
shut  your  vagabond  up  out  of  honest  people's  way,  and 
very  sternly  then  see  that,  until  he  has  worked,  he  does 
not  eat.  But  the  first  thing  is  to  be  sure  you  have  the 
food  to  give  ;  and,  therefore,  to  enforce  the  organization 
of  vast  activities  in  agriculture  and  in  commerce,  for  the 
production  of  the  wholesomest  food,  and  proper  storing 


182  SESAME  AND  LILIES. 

and  distribution  of  it,  so  that  no  famine  shall  any  more 
be  possible  among  civilized  beings.  There  is  plenty  of 
work  in  this  business  alone,  and  at  once,  for  any  num- 
ber of  people  who  like  to  engage  in  it. 

137.  Secondly,  dressing  people — that  is  to  say,  urging 
every  one  within  reach  of  your  influence  to  be  always 
neat  and  clean,  and  giving  them  means  of  being  so.  In 
so  far  as  they  absolutely  refuse,  you  must  give  up  the 
effort  with  respect  to  them,  only  taking  care  that  no 
children  within  your  sphere  of  influence  shall  any  more 
be  brought  up  with  such  habits  ;  and  that  every  person 
who  is  willing  to  dress  with  propriety  shall  have  en- 
couragement to  do  so.  And  the  first  absolutely  neces- 
sary step  towards  this  is  the  gradual  adoption  of  a  con- 
sistent dress  for  different  ranks  of  persons,  so  that  their 
rank  shall  be  known  by  their  dress  ;  and  the  restriction 
of  the  changes  of  fashion  within  certain  limits.  All 
which  appears  for  the  present  quite  impossible  ;  but  it 
is  only  so  far  as  even  difficult  as  it  is  difficult  to  conquer 
our  vanity,  frivolity,  and  desire  to  appear  what  we  are 
not.  And  it  is  not,  nor  ever  shall  be,  creed  of  mine, 
that  these  mean  and  shallow  vices  are  unconquerable 
by  Christian  women. 

138.  And  then,  thirdly,  lodging  people,  which  you 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS.  183 

may  think  should  have  been  put  first,  but  I  put  it  third, 
because  we  must  feed  and  clothe  people  where  we  find 
them,  and  lodge  them  afterwards.  And  providing  lodg- 
ment for  them  means  a  great  deal  of  vigorous  legisla- 
ture, and  cutting  down  of  vested  interests  that  stand  in 
the  way,  and  after  that,  or  before  that,  so  far  as  we  can 
get  it,  thorough  sanitary  and  remedial  action  in  the 
houses  that  we  have ;  and  then  the  building  of  more, 
strongly,  beautifully,  and  in  groups  of  limited  extent, 
kept  in  proportion  to  their  streams,  and  walled  round, 
so  that  there  may  be  no  festering  and  wretched  suburb 
anywhere,  but  clean  and  busy  street  within,  and  the 
open  country  without,  with  a  belt  of  beautiful  garden 
and  orchard  round  the  walls,  so  that  from  any  part  ot 
the  city  perfectly  fresh  air  and  grass,  and  sight  of  far 
horizon  might  be  reachable  in  a  few  minutes'  walk. 
This  the  final  aim  ;  but  in  immediate  action  every  minor 
and  possible  good  to  be  instantly  done,  when,  and  as, 
we  can ;  roofs  mended  that  have  holes  in  them — fences 
patched  that  have  gaps  in  them — walls  buttressed  that 
totter — and  floors  propped  that  shake  ;  cleanliness  and 
order  enforced  with  our  own  hands  and  eyes,  till  we 
are  breathless,  every  day.  And  all  the  fine  arts  will 
healthily  follow.    I  myself  have  washed  a  flight  of  stone 


184  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

stairs  all  down,  with  bucket  and  broom,  in  a  Savoy  inn, 
where  they  hadn't  washed  their  stairs  since  they  first 
went  up  them  ?  and  I  never  made  a  better  sketch  than 
that  afternoon. 

139.  These,  then,  are  the  three  first  needs  of  civilized 
life  ;  and  the  law  for  every  Christian  man  and  woman  is, 
that  they  shall  be  in  direct  service  towards  one  of  these 
three  needs,  as  far  as  is  consistent  with  their  own  spec- 
ial occupation,  and  if  they  have  no  special  business,  then 
wholly  in  one  of  these  services.  And  out  of  such  exer- 
tion in  plain  duty  all  other  good  will  come  ;  for  in  this 
direct  contention  with  material  evil,  you  will  find  out 
the  real  nature  of  all  evil ;  you  will  discern  by  the  va- 
rious kinds  of  resistance,  what  is  really  the  fault  and 
main  antagonism  to  good ;  also  you  will  find  the  most 
unexpected  helps  and  profound  lessons  given,  and  truths 
will  come  thus  down  to  us  which  the  speculation  of  all 
our  lives  would  never  have  raised  us  up  to.  You  will 
find  nearly  every  educational  problem  solved,  as  soon  as 
you  truly  want  to  do  something  ;  everybody  will  become 
of  use  in  their  own  fittest  way,  and  will  learn  what  is 
best  for  them  to  know  in  that  use.  Competitive  exam- 
ination will  then,  and  not  till  then,  be  wholesome, 
because  it  will  be  daily,  and  calm,  and  in  practice ;  and 


MYSTEEY   OF  LIFE  AND   ITS   AETS.  185 

on  these  familiar  arts,  and  minute,  but  certain  and  ser- 
viceable knowledges,  will  be  surely  edified  and  sustained 
the  greater  arts  and  splendid  theoretical  sciences. 

140.  But  much  more  than  this.  On  such  holy  and 
simple  practice  will  be  founded,  indeed,  at  last,  an  in- 
fallible religion.  The  greatest  of  all  the  mysteries  of 
life,  and  the  most  terrible,  is  the  corruption  of  even  the 
sincerest  religion,  which  is  not  daily  founded  on  rational, 
effective,  humble,  and  helpful  action.  Helpful  action, 
observe  !  for  there  is  just  one  law,  which  obeyed,  keeps 
all  religions  pure — forgotten,  makes  them  all  false. 
Whenever  in  any  religious  faith,  dark  or  bright,  we  al- 
low our  minds  to  dwell  upon  the  points  in  which  we 
differ  from  other  people,  we  are  wrong,  and  in  the  devil's 
power.  That  is  the  essence  of  the  Pharisee's  thanks- 
giving— "  Lord,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other  men 
are."  At  every  moment  of  our  lives  we  should  be  try- 
ing to  find  out,  not  in  what  we  differ  with  other  people, 
but  in  what  we  agree  with  them  ;  and  the  moment  we 
find  we  can  agree  as  to  anything  that  should  be  done, 
kind  or  good,  (and  who  but  fools  couldn't  ?)  then  do  it ; 
push  at  it  together  ;  you  can't  quarrel  in  a  side-by-side 
push  ;  but  the  moment  that  even  the  best  men  stop 
pushing,  and  begin  talking,  they  mistake  their  pugnacity 


186  SESAME  AND   LILIES. 

for  piety,  and  it's  all  over.  I  will  not  speak  of  the 
crimes  which  in  past  times  have  been  committed  in  the 
name  of  Christ,  nor  of  the  follies  which  are  at  this  hour 
held  to  be  consistent  with  obedience  to  Him  ;  but  I  will 
speak  of  the  morbid  corruption  and  waste  of  vital  power 
in  religious  sentiment,  by  which  the  pure  strength  of 
that  which  should  be  the  guiding  soul  of  every  nation, 
the  splendour  of  its  youthful  manhood,  and  spotless 
light  of  its  maidenhood,  is  averted  or  cast  away.  You 
may  see  continually  girls  who  have  never  been  taught 
to  do  a  single  useful  thing  thoroughly  ;  who  cannot  sew, 
who  cannot  cook,  who  cannot  cast  an  account,  nor  pre- 
pare a  medicine,  whose  whole  life  has  been  passed 
either  in  play  or  in  pride ;  you  will  find  girls  like  these 
when  they  are  earnest-hearted,  cast  all  their  innate  pas- 
sion of  religious  spirit,  which  was  meant  by  God  to 
support  them  through  the  irksomeness  of  daily  toil, 
into  grievous  and  vain  meditation  over  the  meaning  of 
the  great  Book,  of  which  no  syllable  was  ever  yet  to  be 
understood  but  through  a  deed  ;  all  the  instinctive  wis- 
dom and  mercy  of  their  womanhood  made  vain,  and  the 
glory  of  their  pure  consciences  warped  into  fruitless 
agony  concerning  questions  which  the  laws  of  common 
serviceable  life  would  have  either  solved  for  them  in  an 


MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND   ITS   AETS.  187 

instant,  or  kept  out  of  their  way.  Give  such  a  girl  any 
true  work  that  will  make  her  active  in  the  dawn,  and 
weary  at  night,  with  the  consciousness  that  her  fellow- 
creatures  have  indeed  been  the  better  for  her  day,  and 
the  powerless  sorrow  of  her  enthusiasm  will  transform 
itself  into  a  majesty  of  radiant  and  beneficent  peace. 

So  with  our  youths.  We  once  taught  them  to  make 
Latin  verses,  and  called  them  educated  ;  now  wo  teach 
them  to  leap  and  to  row,  to  hit  a  ball  with  a  bat,  and 
call  them  educated.  Can  they  plow,  can  they  sow, 
can  they  plant  at  the  right  time,  or  build  with  a  steady 
hand  ?  Is  it  the  effort  of  their  lives  to  be  chaste, 
knightly,  faithful,  holy  in  thought,  lovely  in  word  and 
deed  ?  Indeed  it  is,  with  some,  nay  with  many,  and  the 
strength  of  England  is  in  them,  and  the  hope ;  but  we 
have  to  turn  their  courage  from  the  toil  of  war  to  the 
toil  of  mercy  ;  and  their  intellect  from  dispute  of  words 
to  discernment  of  things  ;  and  their  knighthood  from  the 
errantry  of  adventure  to  the  state  and  fidelity  of  a  kingly 
power.  And  then,  indeed,  shall  abide,  for  them,  and 
for  us  an  incorruptible  felicity,  and  an  infallible  religion ; 
shall  abide  for  us  Faith,  no  more  to  be  assailed  by  temp- 
tation, no  more  to  be  defended  by  wrath  and  by  fear ; 
— shall  abide  with  us  Hope,  no  more  to  be  quenched  by 


188  SESAME   AND   LILIES. 

the  years  that  overwhelm,  or  made  ashamed  by  the 
shadows  that  betray  ;  shall  abide  for  us,  and  with  us, 
the  greatest  of  these  ;  the  abiding  will,  the  abiding  name, 
of  our  Father.     For  the  greatest  of  these,  is  Charity. 


THE   END. 


THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  DUST. 


THE 


ETHICS  OF  THE  DUST. 


£cn  €cctnxtQ 


TO 


LITTLE    HOUSEWIVES 


ON 


THE    ELEMENTS    OF    CRYSTALLISATION. 


BY 

MOIL     RUSKIN,    LL. 

HONOa*J»T   8'  NT   OF   CHRIST  CHLTICH,    AND  ;^'n 


SECOND    EDITH 

WITH    NEW   PREFACK    A  \        ED    NOTE. 


NEW  YORK : 
JOHN   WILEY   &   SONS, 

15  ASTOB  PLACE. 

181      . 


DEDICATION. 


The  Roal  Little  Housewives, 

WHOSE  GENTLE  LISTENING 

AND  THOUGHTFUL  QUESTIONING 

ENABLED    THE    WHITES    TO    WEITE    THIS    BOOK, 

IT     IS     DEDICATED 

WITH   HIS  LOVE. 


Christmas,  1875 


CONTENTS. 


LEOTUB&  PAOB 

I.  The  Valley  of  Diamonds       ...        -  .13 

II.    The  Pyramid  Builders  ....  .31 

III.    The  Crystal  Life 49 

IT.    The  Crystal  Orders 69 

V.    Crystal  Virtues 91 

VI.    Crystal  Quarrels  ....  .  115 

VIL    Home  Virtues         .  137 

VIII.  Crystal  Caprice 1G5 

IX.    Crystal  Sorrows  ,  .....    187 

X.   The  Crystal  Rest .211 

Noras  .  •    241 


PERSONS. 


Old  Lecturer  (ot  incalculable  age). 

Florrie,  on  astronomical  evidence  presumed  to  be  aged  9. 


Isabel    

• 

"  11. 

Mat       ........... 

. 

"  11. 

Lilt 

4 

"  12. 

Kathleen 

. 

"  14. 

Lttcilla 

. 

"  15 

Violet    

"  16. 

Dora  (who  has  the  keys  and  is  housekeeper) 

. 

"  17. 

Egtpt  (so  called  from  her  dark  eyes) 

. 

"  17 

Jessie  (who  somehow  always  makes  the  room 

look 

brighter  when  she  is  in  it) 

. 

"  18. 

Mart  (of  whom  everybody,  including  the  Old 

Lecturer,  is  in  great  awe) 

. 

"20. 

PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND  EDITION. 


I  have  seldom  been  more  disappointed  by  the  result 
of  my  best  pains  given  to  any  of  my  books,  than  by  the 
earnest  request  of  my  publisher,  after  the  opinion  of 
the  public  had  been  taken  on  the  'Ethics  of  the  Dust,1 
that  I  would  ''write  no  more  in  dialogue!"  However,  I 
bowed  to  public  judgment  in  this  matter  at  ouce,  (know- 
ing also  my  inventive  powers  to  be  of  the  feeblest,); 
but  in  reprinting  the  book,  (at  the  prevailing  request  of 
im  kind  friend,  Mr.  Henry  Willett,)  I  would  pray  the 
readers  whom  it  may  at  first  offend  by  its  disconnected 
method,  to  examine,  nevertheless,  with  care,  the  pas 
in  which  the  principal  speaker  sums  the  conclusions  of 
any  dialogue:  for  these  summaries  were  written  as  in- 
troductions, for  young  people,  to  all  that  I  have  said  on 
the  same  matters  in  my  larger  books  ;  and,  on  re-reading 
thorn,  they  satisfy  me  better,  and  seem  to  me  calculated 
to  be  more  generally  useful,  than  anything  else  1  have 
done  of  the  kind. 

The    summary    of    the    contents   of    the    whole    book, 
beginning,  "  You   may  at  least  earnestly  believe,"  at  p 


X  PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION. 

219,  is  thus  the  clearest  exposition  I  have  ever  yet  given 
of  the  jreneral  conditions  under  which  the  Personal 
Creative  Power  manifests  itself  in  the  forms  of  matter ; 
and  the  analysis  of  heathen  conceptions  of  Deity,  begin- 
ning at  p.  220,  and  closing  at  p.  232,  not  only  prefaces, 
but  very  nearly  supersedes,  all  that  in  more  lengthy 
terms  I  have  since  asserted,  or  pleaded  for,  in  '  Aratra 
Pentelici,'  and  the  '  Queen  of  the  Air.' 

And  thus,  however  the  book  may  fail  in  its  intention 
of  suggesting  new  occupations  or  interests  to  its  younger 
readers,  I  think  it  worth  reprinting,  in  the  way  I  have 
also  reprinted  '  Unto  this  Last,' — page  for  page ;  that  the 
students  of  my  more  advanced  works  may  be  able  to 
refer  to  these  as  the  original  documents  of  them  ;  of 
which  the  most  essential  in  this  book  are  these  following. 

I.  The  explanation  of  the  baseness  of  the  avaricious 
functions  of  the  Lower  Pthah,  p.  61,  with  his  beetle- 
gospel,  p.  65,  "that  a  nation  can  stand  on  its  vices  better 
than  on  its  virtues,"  explains  the  main  motive  of  all  my 
books  on  Political  Economy. 

II.  The  examination  of  the  connexion  between  stu- 
pidity and  crime,  pp.  93-101.  Anticipated  all  that  I  have 
had  to  urge  in  Fors  Clavigera  against  the  commonly 
alleged  excuse  for  public  wickedness, — "  They  don't 
mean  it — they  don't  know  any  better." 

III.  The  examination  of  the  roots  of  Moral  Power, 
pp.  149 — 152,  is  a  summary  of  what  is  afterwards  devel- 
oped with  utmost  care  in  my  inaugural  lecture  at  Oxford 


PEEFACE  TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION.  X: 

on  the  relation  of  Art  to  Morals ;  compare  in  that  lec- 
ture, §§  83-85,  with  the  sentence  in  p.  151  of  this  book 
"  Nothing  is  ever  done  so  as  really  to  please  our  Father 
unless  we  would  also  have  done  it,  though  we  had  had  no 
Father  to  know  of  it." 

This  sentence,  however,  it  must  be  observed,  regards 
only  the  general  conditions  of  action  in  the  children  of 
God,  in  consequence  of  which  it  is  foretold  of  them  by 
Christ  that  they  will  say  at  the  Judgment,  "  When  saw 
we  thee?"  It  does  not  refer  to  the  distinct  cases  in 
which  virtue  consists  in  faith  given  to  command,  appear- 
ing to  foolish  human  judgment  inconsistent  with  the 
Moral  Law,  as  in  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac ;  nor  to  those  in 
which  any  directly -given  command  requires  nothing  more 
of  virtue  than  obedience. 

IV.  The  subsequent  pages,  152-161,  were  written 
especially  to  check  the  dangerous  impulses  natural  tc 
the  minds  of  many  amiable  young  women,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  narrow  and  selfish  religious  sentiment:  and  they 
contain,  therefore,  nearly  everything  which  I  believe  it 
necessary  that  young  people  should  be  made  to  observe, 
respecting  the  errors  of  monastic  life.  But  they  in  no- 
wise enter  on  the  reverse,  or  favourable  side:  of  whirl] 
indeed  I  did  not,  and  as  yet  do  no!,  feel  myself  able  in 
speak  with  any  decisiveness ;  the  evidence  on  thai  side, 
as  stated  in  the  text,  having  "never  yet  been  di 

ately  examined." 

V.  The  dialogue  with  Lucilla,  beginning  at  p.  101,  is,  t< 


Xll  PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITI^. 

my  own  fancy,  the  best  bit  of  conversation  in  the  bock  • 
and  the  issue  of  it,  at  p.  109,  the  most  practically  and 
immediately  useful.  For  on  the  idea  of  the  inevitable 
weakness  and  corruption  of  human  nature,  has  logically 
followed,  in  our  daily  life,  the  horrible  creed  of  modern 
"  Social  science,"  that  all  social  action  must  be  scientific- 
ally founded  on  vicious  impulses.  But  on  the  habit  of 
measuring  and  reverencing  our  powers  and  talents  that 
we  may  kindly  use  them,  will  be  founded  a  true  Social 
science,  developing,  by  the  employment  of  them5  all  the 
real  powers  and  honourable  feelings  of  the  race. 

VI.  Finally,  the  account  given  in  the  second  and  third 
lectures,  of  the  real  nature  and  marvellousness  of  the 
laws  of  crystallization,  is  necessary  to  the  understanding 
of  what  farther  teaching  of  the  beauty  of  inorganic 
form  I  may  be  able  to  give,  either  in  '  Deucalion,'  or  in 
my  'Elements  of  Drawing.'  I  wish  however  that  the 
second  lecture  had  been  made  the  beginning  of  the  book  ; 
and  would  fain  now  cancel  the  first  altogether,  which  1 
perceive  to  be  both  obscure  and  dull.  It  was  meant  for 
a  metaphorical  description  of  the  pleasures  and  dangers 
in  the  kingdom  of  Mammon,  or  of  worldly  wealth  ;  its 
waters  mixed  with  blood,  its  fruits  entangled  in  thickets 
of  trouble,  and  poisonous  when  gathered  ;  and  the  final 
captivity  of  its  inhabitants  within  frozen  walls  of  cruelty 
and  disdain.  But  the  imagery  is  stupid  and  ineffective 
throughout ;  and  I  retain  this  chapter  only  because  I  am 
resolved  to  leave  no  room  for  any  one  to  say  that  [  have 


PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION.  Xlll 

withdrawn,  as  erroneous  in  principle,  so  much  as  a  single 
sentence  of  any  of  my  books  written  since  1SG0. 

One  license  taken  in  this  book,  however,  though  often 
permitted  to  essay-writers  for  the  relief  of  their  dulncss. 
I  never  mean  to  take  more, — the  relation  of  composed 
metaphor  as  of  actual  dream,  pp.  34  and  175.  1  assumed, 
it  is  true,  that  in  these  places  the  supposed  dream  would 
be  easily  seen  to  be  an  invention  ;  but  must  not  any 
more,  even  under  so  transparent  disguise,  pretend  to  any 
share  in  the  real  powers  of  Vision  possessed  by  s;real 
poets  and  true  painters. 

Brantwood 

10th  October,  1877. 


PREFACE. 


The  following  lectures  were  really  given,  in  substance,  at 
a  girls'  school  (far  in  the  country) ;  which,  in  the  course  of 
various  experiments  on  the  possibility  of  introducing  some 
better  practice  of  drawing  into  the  modern  scheme  of 
female  education,  I  visited  frequently  enough  to  enable  the 
children  to  regard  me  as  a  friend.  The  Lectures  always  fell 
more  or  less  into  the  form  of  fragmentary  answers  to  ques- 
tions; and  they  are  allowed  to  retain  that  form,  as,  on  the 
whole,  likely  to  be  more  interesting  than  the  sjmimetries 
of  a  continuous  treatise.  Many  children  (for  the  school 
was  large)  took  part,  at  different  times,  in  the  con- 
versations; but  I  have  endeavoured,  without  confusedly 
multiplying    the    number    of     imaginary*    speakers,    to 

*  I  do  not  mean,  in  saying  'imaginary,'  that  I  have  not  pern 
to  myself,  in  several  instances,  the  affectionate  discourtesy  of 
reminiscence  of  personal  character ;  for  which  I  must  hope  to  bo  for  ■ 
given  by  my  old  pupils  and  their  friends,  as  I  could  not  otherwise 


xvl  PREFACE. 

represent,  as  far  as  I  could,  the  general  tone  of  comment 
and  enquiry  among  young  people. 

It  will  be  at  once  seen  that  these  Lectures  were  nol 
intended  for  an  introduction  to  mineralogy.  Their  pur 
pose  was  merely  to  awaken  in  the  minds  of  young  gills, 
who  were  ready  to  work  earnestly  and  systematically,  a 
vital  interest  in  the  subject  of  their  study.  No  science  can 
be  learned  in  play  ;  but  it  is  often  possible,  in  play,  to  bring 
good  fruit  out  of  past  labour,  or  show  sufficient  reasons  for 
the  labour  of  the  future. 

The  narrowness  of  this  aim  does  not,  indeed,  justify  the 
absence  of  all  reference  to  many  important  principles  of 
structure,  and  many  of  the  most  interesting  orders  of 
minerals;  but  I  felt  it  impossible  to  go  far  into  detail 
without  illustrations  ;  and  if  readers  iind  this  book  useful, 
I  may,  perhaps,  endeavour  to  supplement  it  by  illustrated 
notes  of  the  more  interesting  phenomena  in  separate  group9 
of  familiar  minerals; — flints  of  the  chalk; — agates  of  the 
basalts, — and  the  fantastic  and  exquisitely  beautiful  vari 
eties  of  the  vein-ores  of  the  two  commonest  metals,  lead 
and  iron.  But  I  have  alwa}-s  found  that  the  less  wc 
Bpeak  of  our  intentions,  the  more  chance  there  is  of  otu 

have  written  the  book  at  all.     But  only  two  sentences   in   all    the 
dialogues,  and  the  anecdote  of  Dotty,'  are  literally  'historical.' 


PREFACE. 


realising  them ;  and  this  poor  little  book  will  sufficiently 
have  done  its  work,  for  the  present,  if  it  engages  any 
of  its  young  readers  in  study  which  may  enable  them 
to  despise  it  for  its  shortcomings. 


Dejmaek  Hxll: 

Christmas  1866 


The  Ethics  of  the  Dust. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE  VALLEY  OF  DIAMONDS. 

A  very  idle  talk,  by  the  dining-room  fire,  after  raism-and 
almond  time. 

Old  Lecturer  ;  Florrie,  Isabel,  Mat,  Lilt,  and  Sibtl. 

Old  Lecturer  (L.).  Come  here,  Isabel,  and  tell  me  what 
the  make-believe  was,  this  afternoon. 

•  Isabel  {arranging  herself  very  primly  on  the  footstool). 
Such  a  dreadful  one !  Florrie  and  I  were  lost  in  the  Valley 
of  Diamonds. 

L.  What !    Sindbad's,  which  nobody  could  get  out  of? 

Isabel.  Yes ;  but  Florrie  and  I  got  out  of  it. 

L.  So  I  see.    At  least,  I  see  you  did ;  but  are  you  sure 
Florrie  did  ? 

Isabel.  Quite  sure. 

Florrie  (putting  her  head  round  from  behind  L.'s  sofa- 
"ushiori).     Quite  sure.     (Disappears  again.) 

L.  I  think  I  could  be  made  to  feel  surer  about  it. 

(Florrie  reappears,  gives  L.  a  Iciss,  and  again  exit.) 

L.  I  suppose  it's  all  right ;  but  how  did  you  manage  it  ? 

Isabel.  Well,  you  know,  the  eagle  that  took  up  Sindbad 


14  THE   VALLEY   OF  DIAMONDS. 

was  very  large — very,   very  large — the  largest  of  all   the 
eagles. 

L    How  large  were  the  others  ? 

Isabel.  I  don't  quite  know — they  were  so  far  off.  But 
this  one  was,  oh,  so  big !  and  it  had  great  wings,  as  wide  as 
— twice  over  the  ceiling.  So,  when  it  was  picking  up  Sind 
bad,  Florrie  and  I  thought  it  wouldn't  know  if  we  got  on  its 
back  too  :  so  I  got  up  first,  and  then  I  pulled  up  Florrie,  and 
we  put  our  arms  round  its  neck,  and  away  it  flew. 

L.  But  why  did  you  want  to  get  out  of  the  valley  ?  and 
why  haven't  you  brought  me  some  diamonds  ? 

Isabel.  It  was  because  of  the  serpents.     I  couldn't  pick 
up  even  the  least  little  bit  of  a  diamond,  I  was  so  frightened. 

L.  You  should  not  have  minded  the  serpents. 

Isabel.  Oh,  but  suppose  that  they  had  minded  me  ? 

L.   We  all  of  us  mind  you  a  little  too  much,  Isabel,  I'm 
afraid. 

Isabel.  No — no — no,  indeed. 

L.  I  tell  you  what,  Isabel — I  don't  believe  either  Sindbad, 
or  Florrie,  or  you,  ever  were  in  the  Valley  of  Diamonds. 

Isabel.  You  naughty !  when  I  tell  you  we  were ! 

L.  Because  you  say  you  were  frightened  at  the  serpents. 

Isabel.  And  wouldn't  you  have  been  ? 

L.  Not  at  those  serpents.     Nobody  who  really  goes  into 
the  valley  is  ever  frightened  at  them — they  are  so  beautiful. 


THE    VALLEY    OF    DIAMONDS.  15 

Isabel  {suddenly  serious) .  But  there's  no  real  Valley  of 
Diamonds,  is  there? 

L.  Yes,  Isabel ;  very  real  indeed. 

Florrie  {reappearing).  Oh,  where?     Tell  me  about  it. 

L.  I  cannot  tell  you  a  great  deal  about  it ;  only  I  know  it 
is  very  different  from  Sindbad's.  In  his  valley,  there  was  only 
a  diamond  lying  here  and  there  ;  but,  in  the  real  valley,  there 
are  diamonds  covering  the  grass  in  showers  every  morning, 
instead  of  dew:  and  there  are  clusters  of  trees,  which  look  like 
lilac  trees;  but,  in  spring,  all  their  blossoms  are  of  amethyst. 

Florrie.  But  there  can't  be  any  serpents  there,  then  ? 

L.  Why  not  ? 

Florrie.  Becauso  they  don't  come  into  such  beautiful 
places. 

L.  I  never  said  it  was  a  beautiful  place. 

Florrie.  What !  not  with  diamonds  strewed  about  it  like 
dew? 

L.  That's  according  to  your  fancy,  Florrie.  For  myself,  I 
like  dew  better. 

Isabel.  Oh,  but  the  dew  won't  stay;  it  all  dries ! 

L.  Yes;  and  it  would  be  much  nicer  if  the  diamonds  dried 
too,  for  the  people  in  the  valley  have  to  sweep  them  off  ibe 
glass,  in  heaps,  whenever  they  want  to  walk  on  it ;  and  tbeu 
the  heaps  glitter  so,  they  hurt  one's  eyes. 

Flobrie.  Now  you're  just  playing,  you  know. 


16  THE  VALLEY   OF   DIAMONDS. 

L   So  are  you,  you  know. 

Flokrie.  Yes,  but  you  mustn't  play. 

L.  That's  very  hard,  Florrie  ;  why  mustn't  I,  if  you  may  f 

Flokrie.  Oh,  I  may,  because  I'm  little,  but  you  mustn't, 
because  you're — [hesitates  for  a  delicate  expression  of 
magnitude). 

L.  {rudely  talcing  the  first  that  comes).  Because  I'm  big  ? 
No  ;  that's  not  the  way  of  it  at  all,  Florrie.  Because  you're 
little,  you  should  have  very  little  play ;  and  because  I'm  big 
I  should  have  a  great  deal. 

Isabel  and  Florrie  (both).  No — no — no — no.  That  isn't 
it  at  all.  (Isabel  sola,  quoting  Miss  Ingelow.)  '  The  lambs 
play  always — they  know  no  better.'  (Putting  her  head  very 
much  on  one  side.)  Ah,  now — please — please — tell  us  true ; 
we  want  to  know. 

L.  But  why  do  you  want  me  to  tell  you  true,  any  more 
than  the  man  who  wrote  the  '  Arabian  Nights  ?  ' 

Isabel.  Because — because  we  like  to  know  about  real 
things ;  and  you  can  tell  us,  and  we  can't  ask  the  man  who 
wrote  the  stories. 

L.  What  do  you  call  real  things  'i 

Isabel.  Now,  you  know  !     Things  that  really  are. 

L.  Whether  you  can  see  them  or  not  ? 

Isabel.  Yes,  if  somebody  else  saw  them. 

L.  But  if  nobody  has  ever  seen  them  ? 


THE  VALLEY   OF   DIAMONDS.  11 

Isabel  (evading  the  point).  Well,  but,  you  know,  if  there 
were  a  real  Valley  of  Diamonds,  somebody  must  have  Been  it. 

L.  You  cannot  be  so  sure  of  that,  Isabel.  Many  people 
go  to  real  places,  and  never  see  them ;  and  many  people 
pass  through  this  valley,  and  never  see  it. 

Flobrie.  What  stupid  people  they  must  be ! 

L.  No,  Florrie.  They  are  much  wiser  than  the  people 
who  do  see  it. 

Mat.  I  think  I  know  where  it  is. 

Isabel.  Tell  us  more  about  it,  and  then  we'll  guess. 

L.  Well.  There's  a  great  broad  road,  by  a  river-side, 
leading  up  into  it. 

May  (gravely  cunning,  with  emphasis  on  the  last  word). 
Does  the  road  really  go  up  ? 

L.  You  think  it  should  go  down  into  a  valley  ?  No,  it 
goes  up ;  this  is  a  valley  among  the  hills,  and  it  is  as  high 
as  the  clouds,  and  is  often  full  of  them ;  so  that  even  the 
people  who  most  want  to  see  it,  cannot,  always. 

Isabel.  And  what  is  the  river  beside  the  road  like  ? 

L.  It  ought  to  be  very  beautiful,  because  it  flows  over 
diamond  sand — only  the  water  is  thick  and  red. 

Isabel.  Red  water  ? 

L.  It  isn't  all  water. 

May.  Oh,  please  never  mind  that,  Isabel,  just  now ;  1 
want  to  hear  about  the  valley. 


18  THE   VALLEY    OP   DIAMONDS. 

L.  So  the  entrance  to  it  is  very  wide,  under  a  steep  rock  ; 
only  such  numbers  of  people  are  always  trying  to  get  in, 
that  they  keep  jostling  each  other,  and  manage  it  but  slowly. 
Some  weak  ones  are  pushed  back,  and  never  get  in  at  all ; 
and  make  great  moaning  as  they  go  away  :  but  perhaps  they 
are  none  the  worse  in  the  end. 

Mat.  And  when  one  gets  in,  what  is  it  like  ? 

L.  It  is  up  and  down,  broken  kind  of  ground:  the  road 
stops  directly ;  and  there  are  great  dark  rocks,  covered  all 
over  with  wild  gourds  and  wild  vines ;  the  gourds,  if  you 
cut  them,  are  red,  with  black  seeds,  like  water-melons,  and 
look  ever  so  nice  ;  and  the  people  of  the  place  make  a  red 
pottage  of  them :  but  you  must  take  care  not  to  eat  any  if 
you  ever  want  to  leave  the  valley  (though  I  believe  putting 
plenty  of  meal  in  it  makes  it  wholesome).  Then  the  wild 
vines  have  clusters  of  the  colour  of  amber ;  and  the  people 
of  the  country  say  they  are  the  grape  of  Eshcol ;  and  sweeter 
than  honey :  but,  indeed,  if  anybody  else  tastes  them,  they 
are  like  gall.  Then  there  are  thickets  of  bramble,  so  thorny 
that  they  would  be  cut  away  directly,  anywhere  else ;  but 
here  they  are  covered  with  little  cinque-foiled  blossoms  of 
pure  silver;  and,  for  berries,  they  have  clusters  of  rubies 
Dark  rubies,  which  you  only  see  are  red  after  gathering 
them.  But  you  may  fancy  what  blackberry  parties  the  chil- 
dren have  !    Only  they  get  their  frocks  and  hands  sadly  torn. 


THE   VALLEY    OF   DIAMONDS.  19 

Lily.  But  rubies  can't  spot  oue's  frocks,  as  blackberries  do  ? 

L.  No  ;  but  I'll  tell  you  what  spots  them — the  mulberries, 
There  are  great  forests  of  them,  all  up  the  hills,  covered 
with  silkworms,  some  munching  the  leaves  so  loud  that  it  is 
like  mills  at  work;  and  some  spinning.  But  the  berries 
are  the  blackest  you  ever  saw ;  and,  wherever  they  fall, 
they  stain  a  deep  red;  and  nothing  ever  washes  it  out 
again.  And  it  is  their  juice,  soaking  through  the  grass, 
which  makes  the  river  so  red,  because  all  its  springs  are  in 
this  wood.  And  the  boughs  of  the  trees  are  twisted,  as  if 
in  pain,  like  old  olive  branches ;  and  their  leaves  are  dark. 
And  it  is  in  these  forests  that  the  serpents  are ;  but  nobody  is 
afraid  of  them.  They  have  fine  crimson  crests,  and  they  are 
wreathed  about  the  wild  branches,  one  in  every  tree,  nearly ; 
and  they  are  singing  serpents,  for  the  serpents  are,  in  this 
forest,  what  birds  are  in  ours. 

Florrie.  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  go  there  at  all,  now. 

L.  You  would  like  it  very  much  indeed,  Florrie,  if  you 
were  there.  The  serpents  would  not  bite  you  ;  the  only  fear 
would  be  of  your  turning  into  one  ! 

Florrie.  Oh,  dear,  but  that's  won»e. 

L.  You  Avouldn't  think  !?o  if  you  really  were  turned  into 
one,  Florrie ;  you  would  be  very  proud  of  your  crest.  And 
as  long  as  you  were  yourself  (not  that  you  could  get  there  if 
you  remained  quite  the  little  Fiorrieyou  are  now),  you  would 


20  THE   VAIXEY   OP   DIAMONDS. 

like  to  hear  the  serpents  sing.  They  hiss  a  little  through  it, 
like  the  cicadas  in  Italy ;  but  they  keep  good  time,  and  sing 
delightful  melodies ;  and  most  of  them  have  seven  heads, 
with  throats  which  each  take  a  note  of  the  octave ;  so  that 
they  can  sing  chords — it  is  very  fine  indeed.  And  the  fire- 
flies fly  round  the  edge  of  the  forests  all  the  night  long ;  you 
wade  in  fireflies,  they  make  the  fields  look  like  a  lake  trem- 
bling with  reflection  of  stars ;  but  you  must  take  care  not  to 
touch  them,  for  they  are  not  like  Italian  fireflies,  but  burn, 
like  real  sparks. 

Florrie.  I  don't  like  it  at  all ;  I'll  never  go  there. 

L.  I  hope  not,  Florrie;  or  at  least  that  you  will  get  out 
again  if  you  do.  And  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  out,  for  beyond 
these  serpent  forests  there  are  great  cliffs  of  dead  gold,  which 
form  a  labyrinth,  winding  always  higher  and  higher,  till  the 
gold  is  all  split  asunder  by  wedges  of  ice;  and  glaciers, 
welded,  half  of  ice  seven  times  frozen,  and  half  of  gold  seven 
times  frozen,  hang  down  from  them,  and  fall  in  thunder, 
cleaving  into  deadly  splinters,  like  the  Cretan  arrowheads ; 
and  into  a  mixed  dust  of  snow  and  gold,  ponderous,  yet 
which  the  mountain  whirlwinds  are  able  to  lift  and  drive  in 
wreaths  and  pillars,  hiding  the  paths  with  a  burial  cloud, 
fatal  at  once  with  wintry  chill,  and  weight  of  golden  ashes. 
So  the  wanderers  in  the  labyrinth  fall,  one  by  one,  and  are 
buried  there : — yet,  over  the  drifted  graves,  those  who  are 


THE    VALLEY    OF   DIAMONDS.  21 

spared  climb  to  the  last,  through  coil  on  coil  of  the  paih  ;— 
for  at  the  end  of  it  they  see  the  king  of  the  valley,  sitting  oc 
his  throne:  and  beside  him  (but  it  is  only  a  false  vision), 
spectra  of  creatures  like  themselves,  set  on  thrones,  from 
which  they  seem  to  look  down  on  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  and  the  glory  of  them.  And  on  the  canopy  of  his 
throne  there  is  an  inscription  in  fiery  letters,  which  they 
strive  to  read,  but  cannot;  for  it  is  written  in  words  which 
are  like  the  words  of  all  languages,  and  yet  are  of  none.  Men 
say  it  is  more  like  their  own  tongue  to  the  English  than  it  is 
to  any  other  nation  ;  but  the  only  record  of  it  is  by  an  Italian, 
who  heard  the  king  himself  cry  it  as  a  war  cry,  '  Pape  Satan, 
Pape  Satan  Aleppe.'  * 

Sibyl.  But  do  they  all  perish  there  ?  You  said  there  was 
a  way  through  the  valley,  and  out  of  it. 

L.  Yes  ;  but  few  find  it.  If  any  of  them  keep  to  the  grass 
paths,  where  the  diamonds  are  swept  aside;  and  hold  their 
hands  over  their  eyes  so  as  not  to  be  dazzled,  the  grass  paths 
lead  forward  gradually  to  a  place  where  one  sees  a  little 
opening  in  the  golden  rocks.  You  were  at  Chamouni  last 
jrear,  Sibyl;  did  your  guide  chance  to  show  you  the  pierced 
rock  of  the  Aiguille  du  Midi  ? 

Sibyl.  No,  indeed,  we  only  got  up  from  Geneva  on  Mon 

*  Dante,  Inf.  1    L 


22  THE   VALLEY    OP   DIAMONDS. 

day  night;  and  it  rained  all  Tuesday ;  and  we  had  to  be  back 
at  Geneva  again,  early  on  Wednesday  morning. 

L.  Of  course.  That  is  the  way  to  see  a  counti*y  in  a 
Sibylline  manner,  by  inner  consciousness:  but  you  might  have 
Been  the  pierced  rock  in  your  drive  up,  or  down,  if  tbe  clouds 
broke  :  not  that  there  is  much  to  see  in  it ;  one  of  the  crags 
of  the  aiguille-edge,  on  the  southern  slope  of  it,  is  struck 
sharply  through,  as  by  an  awl,  into  a  little  eyelet  hole ;  which 
you  may  see,  seven  thousand  feet  above  the  valley  (as  the 
clouds  flit  past  behind  it,  or  leave  tbe  sky),  first  white,  and 
then  dark  blue.  Well,  there's  just  such  an  eyelet  hole  in  one 
of  the  upper  crags  of  the  Diamond  Valley ;  and,  from  a  dis- 
tance, you  think  that  it  is  no  bigger  than  the  eye  of  a  needle. 
But  if  you  get  up  to  it,  they  say  you  may  drive  a  loaded  camel 
through  it,  and  that  there  are  fine  things  on  the  other  side, 
but  I  have  never  spoken  with  anybody  Avho  had  been  through. 

Sibyl.  I  think  we  understand  it  now.  We  will  try  to 
write  it  down,  and  think  of  ii. 

L.  Meantime,  Florae,  though  all  that  I  have  been  telling 
you  is  very  true,  yet  you  must  not  think  the  sort  of  diamonds 
that  people  wear  in  rings  and  necklaces  are  foimd  lying 
about  on  the  grass.  Would  you  like  to  see  how  they  reallv 
are  found  ? 

Florrie.  Oh,  yes — yes. 

L.  Isabel — or  Lily — run  up  to  my  room  and  felch  me  the 


THE    VALLE?    OF    DIAMONDS.  23 

little  box  with  a  glass  lid,  out  of  the  top  drawer  of  the  chest 
of  drawers.     {Race  between  Lily  and  Isabel.) 

{Re-enter  Isabel  with  the  box,  very  much  out  of  breath. 
Lily  behind.) 

L.  Why,  you  never  can  beat  Lily  in  a  race  on  the  stairs, 
can  you,  Isabel  ? 

Isabel  {panting) .  Lily — beat  me — ever  so  far — but  she 
gave  me — the  box — to  carry  in.  • 

L.  Take  off  the  lid,  then ;  gently. 

Florrie  {after peeping  in,  disappointed).  There's  only  a 
great  ugly  brown  stone  ! 

L.  Not  much  more  than  that,  certainly,  Florrie,  if  people 
were  wise.  But  look,  it  is  not  a  single  stone ;  but  a  knot  of 
pebbles  fastened  together  by  gravel :  and  in  the  gravel,  or 
compressed  sand,  if  you  look  close,  you  will  see  grains  of 
gold  glittering  everywhere,  all  through ;  and  then,  do  you 
see  these  two  white  beads,  which  shine,  as  if  they  had  been 
covered  with  grease  ? 

Florrie.  May  I  touch  them  ? 

L.  Yes ;  you  will  find  they  are  not  greasy,  only  very 
smooth.  Well,  those  are  the  fatal  jewels;  native  here  in 
their  dust  with  gold,  so  that  you  may  see,  cradled  here 
together,  the  two  great  enemies  of  mankind, — the  strongest 
of  all  malignant  physical  powers  that  have  tormented  our 
race. 


24  THE  VALLEY   OF   DIAMONDS. 

Sibyl.  Is  that  really  so  ?  I  know  they  do  great  harm  ;  bm 
do  they  not  also  do  great  good  ? 

L.  My  dear  child,  what  good  ?  Was  any  woman,  do  you 
suppose,  ever  the  better  for  possessing  diamonds?  but  how 
nany  have  been  made  base,  frivolous,  and  miserable  by  desir- 
ing them  ?  Was  ever  man  the  better  for  having  coffers  full 
of  gold  ?  But  who  shall  measure  the  guilt  that  is  incurred 
to  fill  them  ?  JLook  into  the  history  of  any  civilised  nations ; 
analyse,  with  reference  to  this  one  cause  of  crime  and  misery, 
the  lives  and  thoughts  of  their  nobles,  priests,  merchants, 
and  men  of  luxurious  life.  Every  other  temptation  is  at  last 
concentrated  into  this ;  pride,  and  lust,  and  envy,  and  anger 
all  give  up  their  strength  to  avarice.  The  sin  of  the  whole 
world  is  essentially  the  sin  of  Judas.  Men  do  not  disbelieve 
their  Christ ;  but  they  sell  Him. 

Sibyl.  But  surely  that  is  the  fault  of  human  nature? 
it  is  not  caused  by  the  accident,  as  it  were,  of  there  being 
a  pretty  metal,  like  gold,  to  be  found  by  digging.  If  people 
could  not  find  that,  would  they  not  find  something  else,  and 
quarrel  for  it  instead  ? 

L.  No.  Wherever  legislators  have  succeeded  in  excluding, 
for  a  time,  jewels  aud  precious  metals  from  among  national 
possessions,  the  national  spirit  has  remained  healthy.  Cove 
tousness  is  not  natural  to  man — generosity  is ;  but  covetous- 
ness  must  be  excited  by  a  special  cause,  as  a  given  disease 


THE  VALLE7    OF   DIAMONDS.  25 

by  a  given  miasma ;  and  the  essential  nature  of  a  material 
for  the  excitement  of  covetousness  is,  that  it  shall  be  a  beau- 
tiful thing  which  can  be  retained  without  a  use.  The  moment 
we  can  use  our  possessions  to  any  good  purpose  ourselves, 
the  instinct  of  communicating  that  use  to  others  rises  side 
by  side  with  our  power.  If  you  can  read  a  book  rightly, 
you  will  want  others  to  hear  it ;  if  you  can  enjoy  a  picture 
rightly,  you  will  want  others  to  see  it :  learn  how  to  manage 
a  horse,  a  plough,  or  a  ship,  and  you  will  desire  to  make 
your  subordinates  good  horsemen,  ploughmen,  or  sailors ; 
you  will  never  be  able  to  see  the  fine  instrument  you  are 
master  of,  abused ;  but,  once  fix  your  desire  on  anything 
useless,  and  all  the  purest  pride  and  folly  in  your  heart  will 
mix  with  the  desire,  and  make  you  at  last  wholly  inhuman, 
a  mere  ugly  lump  of  stomach  and  suckers,  like  a  cuttle-fish. 

Sibyl.  But  surely,  these  two  beautiful  things,  gold  and 
diamonds,  must  have  been  appointed  to  some  good  purpose  ? 

L.  Quite  conceivably  so,  my  dear :  as  also  earthquakes 
and  pestilences  ;  but  of  such  ultimate  purposes  we  can  have 
no  sight.  The  practical,  immediate  office  of  the  earthquake 
And  pestilence  is  to  slay  us,  like  moths ;  and,  as  moths,  we 
shall  be  wise  to  live  out  of  their  way.  So,  the  practical, 
immediate  office  of  gold  and  diamonds  is  the  multiplied  de- 
struction of  souls  (in  whatever  sense  you  have  been  taught 

to  understand  that  phrase)  ;  and  the  paralysis  of  wholesome 

2 


26  THE   VALLEY    OF    DIAMONDS. 

human  effort  and  thought  on  the  face  of  God's  earth  :  and  a 
wise  nation  will  live  out  of  the  way  of  them.  The  money 
which  the  English  habitually  spend  in  cutting  diamonds 
would,  in  ten  years,  if  it  were  applied  to  cutting  rocks  in 
stead,  leave  no  dangerous  reef  nor  difficult  harbour  round 
the  whole  island  coast.  Great  Britain  would  be  a  diamond 
worth  cutting,  indeed,  a  true  piece  of  regalia.  (Leaves  this 
to  their  thoughts  for  a  little  while.)  Then,  also,  we  poor 
mineralogists  might  sometimes  have  the  chance  of  seeing  a 
fine  crystal  of  diamond  unhacked  by  the  jeweller. 

Sibyl.  Would  it  be  more  beautiful  uncut  ? 

L.  No ;  but  of  infinite  interest.  We  might  even  come  to 
know  something  about  the  making  of  diamonds. 

Sibyl.  I  thought  the  chemists  could  make  them  already? 

L.  In  very  small  black  crystals,  yes;  but  no  one  knows 
how  they  are  formed  where  they  are  found ;  or  if  indeed 
they  are  formed  there  at  all.  These,  in  my  hand,  look  as  if 
they  had  been  swept  down  with  the  gravel  and  gold ;  only 
we  can  trace  the  gravel  and  gold  to  their  native  rocks,  but 
not  the  diamonds.  Read  the  account  given  of  the  diamond 
in  any  good  work  on  mineralogy; — you  will  find  nothing  but 
lists  of  localities  of  gravel,  or  conglomerate  rock  (which  is 
only  an  old  indurated  gravel).  Some  say  it  was  once  a  vege- 
table gum ;  but  it  may  have  been  charred  wood ;  but  what 
one  would  like  to  know  is,  mainly,  why  charcoal  should  nnke 


THE  VALLEY    OF   DIAMONDS.  27 

itself  into  diamonds  in  India,  and  only  into  black  iead  ir 
Borrowdale. 

Sibyl.  Are  they  wholly  the  same,  then  ? 

L.  There  is  a  little  iron  mixed  with  our  black  lead  ;  but 
nothiug  to  hinder  its  crystallisation.  Your  pencils  in  fa  ,t  are 
all  pointed  with  formless  diamond,  though  they  would  be 
h  h  h  pencils  to  purpose,  if  it  crystallised. 

Sibyl.  But  what  is  crystallisation  ? 

L.  A  pleasant  question,  when  one's  half  asleep,  and  it  haa 
been  tea  time  these  two  hours.  What  thoughtless  things 
girls  are  ! 

Sibyl.  Yes,  we  are ;  but  we  want  to  know,  for  all  that. 

L.  My  dear,  it  would  take  a  week  to  tell  you. 

Sibyl.  Well,  take  it,  and  tell  us. 

L.-  But  nobody  knows  anything  about  it. 

Sibyl.  Then  tell  us  something  that  nobody  knows. 

L.  Get  along  with  you,  and  tell  Dora  to  make  tea. 

(The  house  rises  ;  but  of  course  the  Lecturer  wanted 
to  be  forced  to  lecture  again,  and  was.) 


Cectuve  2. 
THE  PYRAMID  BUILDERS. 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  PYRAMID  BUILDERS. 

In  the  large  Schoolroom,  to  which  everybody  has  been 
summoned  by  ringing  of  the  great  bell. 

L.  So  you  have  all  actually  come  to  hear  about  crystallisa- 
tion !    I  cannot  conceive  why,  unless  the  little  ones  think  that 
the  discussion  may  involve  some  reference  to  sugar-candy. 
(Symptoms  of  high  displeasure   among   the  younger 
members  of  council.     Isabel  frowns  severely  at  L., 
and  shakes  her  head  violently.) 

My  dear  children,  if  yon  knew  it,  you  are  yourselves,  at 
this  moment,  as  you  sit  in  your  ranks,  nothing,  in  the  eye 
of  a  mineralogist,  but  a  lovely  group  of  rosy  sugar-candy, 
arranged  by  atomic  forces.  And  even  admitting  you  to  be 
something  more,  you  have  certainly  been  crystallising  with- 
out knowing  it.  Did  not  I  hear  a  great  hurrying  and  whis- 
pering, ten  minutes  ago,  when  you  were  late  in  from  the 
playground ;  and  thought  you  would  not  all  be  quietly  seated 
by  the  time  I  was  ready: — besides  some  discussion  about 
places — something  about  'it's  not  being  fair  that  the  little 
ones  should  always  be  nearest  ?'     Well,  you  were  then  all 


32  THT7.  PTEAMID   BTJILDEES. 

being  crystallised.  When  you  ran  in  from  the  garden,  and 
against  one  another  in  the  passages,  you  were  in  what 
mineralogists  would  call  a  state  of  solution,  and  gradual 
confluence;  when  you  got  seated  in  those  orderly  rows, 
each  in  her  proper  place,  you  became  crystalline.  That  ia 
just  what  the  atoms  of  a  mineral  do,  if  they  can,  whenever 
they  get  disordered :  they  get  into  order  again  as  soon  as 
may  be. 

I  hope  you  feel  inclined  to  interrupt  me,  and  say,  '  But  we 
know  our  places;  how  do  the  atoms  know  theirs?  And 
sometimes  we  dispute  about  our  places;  do  the  atoms — (and, 
besides,  we  don't  like  being  compared  to  atoms  at  all) — 
never  dispute  about  theirs?'  Two  wise  questions  these,  if 
you  had  a  mind  to  put  them !  it  was  long  before  I  asked 
them  myself,  of  myself.  And  I  will  not  call  you  atoms  any 
more.  May  I  call  you — let  me  see — '  primary  molecules  ?' 
{General  dissent  indicated  in  subdued  but  decisive  murmurs.) 
"N"o  !  not  even,  in  familiar  Saxon,  ' dust?' 

(Pause,  with  expression  on  faces  of  sorrowful  doubt  y 
Lily  gives  voice  to  the  general  sentiment  in  a  timid 
'■Please  don't.'') 

No,  children,  I  won't  call  you  that ;  and  mind,  as  you 
grow  up,  that  you  do  not  get  into  an  idle  and  wicked  habit 
of  calling  yourselves  that.  You  are  something  better  than 
dust,  and  have  other  duties  to  do  than  ever  dust  can  do; 


THE    PYRAMID    BUILDERS.  33 

and  the  bonds  of  affection  you  will  enter  into  are  better  than 
merely  'getting  into  order.'  But  see  to  it,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  you  always  behave  at  least  as  well  as  '  dust ;' 
remember,  it  is  only  on  compulsion,  and  while  it  has  nc  free 
permission  to  do  as  it  likes,  that  it  ever  gets  out  of  order- 
but  sometimes,  with  some  of  us,  the  compulsion  has  to  be 
the  other  way — hasn't  it  ?  {Remonstratory  whispers,  expres- 
sive of  opinion  that  the  Lecturer  is  becoming  too  personal.) 
I'm  not  looking  at  anybody  in  particular — indeed  I  am  not. 
Nay,  if  you  blush  so,  Kathleen,  how  can  one  help  looking  ? 
We'll  go  back  to  the  atoms. 

'How  do  they  know  their  places?'  you  asked,  or  should 
have  asked.  Yes,  and  they  have  to  do  much  more  than  know 
them  :  they  have  to  find  their  way  to  them,  and  that  quietly 
and  at  once,  without  running  against  each  other. 

We  may,  indeed,  state  it  briefly  thus : — Suppose  you  have 

to  build  a  castle,  with  towers  and  roofs  and  buttresses,  out 

of  bricks  of  a  given  shape,  and  that  these  bricks  are  all  lying 

in  a  huge  heap  at  the  bottom,  in  utter  confusion,  upset  out 

of  carts  at  random.     You  would  have  to  draw  a  great  many 

plans,  and  count  all  your  bricks,  and  be  sure  you  had  enougl 

for   this  and  that  tower,  before  you  began,  and  then  you 

would  have  to  lay  your  foundation,  and  add  layer  by  layer,  in 

order,  slowly. 

But  how  would  you  be  astonished,  in  these  melancholy 

2* 


34  THE    PYRAMID    BUILDERS. 

days,  when  children  don't  read  children's  bjoks,  nor  believt 
any  more  in  fairies,  if  suddenly  a  real  benevolent  fairy,  in  a 
bright  brick-red  gown,  were  to  rise  in  the  midst  of  the  red 
bricks,  and  to  tap  the  heap  of  them  with  her  wand,  and  say 
'  Thicks,  bricks,  to  your  places ! '  and  then  you  saw  in  an 
instant  the  whole  heap  rise  in  the  air,  like  a  swarm  of  red 
bees,  and — you  have  been  used  to  see  bees  make  a  honey- 
comb, and  to  think  that  strange  enough,  but  now  you  woula 
see  the  honeycomb  make  itself! — You  want  to  ask  something, 
Florrie,  by  the  look  of  your  eyes. 

Florrie.  Are  they  turned  into  real  bees,  with  stings  ? 

L.  No,  Florrie ;  you  are  only  to  fancy  flying  bricks,  as  you 
saw  the  slates  flying  from  the  roof  the  other  day  in  the 
storm;  only  those  slates  didn't  seem  to  know  where  they 
were  going,  and,  besides,  were  going  where  they  had  no 
business  :  but  my  spell-bound  bricks,  though  they  have  no 
wings,  and  what  is  worse,  no  heads  and  no  eyes,  yet  find 
their  way  in  the  air  just  where  they  should  settle,  inti 
towers  and  roofs,  each  flying  to  his  place  and  fastening  there 
at  the  right  moment,  so  that  every  other  one  shall  fit  to  him 
'n  his  t  urn. 

Lily.  But  who  are  the  fairies,  then,  who  build  the  crys 
rals  ? 

L.  There  is  one  great  fairy,  Lily,  who  builds  much  more 
than  crystals;  but  she  builds  these  also.     I  dreamed  that  1 


THE   PYRAMID    BUILDERS.  35 

saw  ner  building  a  pyramid,  the  other  day,  as  she  usftd  to  do, 
for  the  Pharaohs. 

Isabel.  But  that  was  only  a  dream  ? 

L.  Some  dreams  are  truer  than  some  wakings,  Isabel ;  but 
1  won't  tell  it  you  unless  you  like. 

Isabel.  Oh,  please,  please. 

L.  You  are  all  such  wise  children,  there's  no  talking  to 
you ;  you  won't  believe  anything. 

Lily.  No,  we  are  not  wise,  and  we  will  believe  anything, 
when  you  say  we  ought. 

L.  Well,  it  came  about  this  way.  Sibyl,  do  you  recollect 
that  evening  when  we  had  been  looking  at  your  old  cave  by 
Cumo3,  and  wondering  why  you  didn't  live  there  still:  and 
then  we  wondered  how  old  you  were ;  and  Egypt  said  you 
wouldn't  tell,  and  nobody  else  could  tell  but  she ;  and  you 
laughed — I  thought  very  gaily  for  a  Sibyl — and  said  you 
would  harness  a  flock  of  cranes  for  us,  and  we  might  ily  over 
to  Egypt  if  we  liked,  and  see. 

Sibyl.  Yes,  and  you  went,  and  couldn't  find  out  after  all ! 

L.  Why,  you  know,  Egypt  had  been  just  doubling  that 
third  pyramid  of  hers;*  and  making  a  new  entrance  into  it 
and  a  fine  entrance  it  was  !     First,  we  had  to  go  through  an. 
ante-room,  which  had  both  its  doors  blocked  up  with  stones ; 
and  then  we  had  three  granite  portcullises  to  pull  up,  one 

*  Note  L 


36  THE   PYRAMID    BUILDERS. 

after  another ;  and  the  moment  we  had  got  lender  them, 
Egypt  signed  to  somebody  above  ;  and  down  they  came 
again  behind  us,  with  a  roar  like  thunder,  only  louder;  then 
we  got  into  a  passage  fit  for  nobody  but  rats,  and  Egypt 
wouldn't  go  any  farther  herself,  but  said  we  might  go  on  if 
we  liked ;  and  so  we  came  to  a  hole  in  the  pavement,  and 
then  to  a  granite  trap-door — and  then  we  thought  we  had 
gone  quite  far  enough,  and  came  back,  and  Egypt  laughed  at 
us. 

Egypt.  You  would  not  have  had  me  take  my  crown  off, 
and  stoop  all  the  way  down  a  passage  fit  only  for  rats? 

L.  It  was  not  the  crown,  Egypt — you  know  that  very  well. 
It  was  the  flounces  that  would  not  let  you  go  any  farther.  I 
suppose,  however,  you  wear  them  as  typical  of  the  inuuda- 
tion  of  the  Nile,  so  it  is  all  right. 

Isabel.  Why  didn't  you  take  me  with  you  ?  Where  rats 
can  go,  mice  can.     I  wouldn't  have  come  back. 

L.  No,  mousie ;  you  would  have  gone  on  by  yourself, 
and  you  might  have  waked  one  of  Pasht's  cats,*  and  it 
would  have  eaten  you.  I  was  very  glad  you  were  not  there. 
But  after  all  this,  I  suppose  the  imagination  of  the  heavy 
granite  blocks  and  the  underground  ways  had  troubled  me 
and  dreams  are  often  shaped  in  a  strange  opposition  to  the 
impressions  that  have  caused  them ;  and  from  all  that  we 

*  Note  iiL 


THE    PYRAMID    BUILDERS.  37 

Lad  been  reading  in  Bunsen  about  stones  that  couldn't  be 
lifted  with  levers,  1  began  to  dream  about  stones  that  lifted 
themselves  with  wings. 

Sibyl.  Now  you  must  just  tell  us  all  about  it. 

L,  I  dreamed  that  I  was  standing  beside  the  lake,  out  of 
whose  clay  the  bricks  were  made  for  the  great  pyramid  of 
Asychis.*  They  had  just  been  all  finished,  and  were  lying 
by  the  lake  margin,  in  long  ridges,  like  waves.  It  was  near 
evening ;  and  as  I  looked  towards  the  sunset,  I  saw  a  thing 
like  a  dark  pillar  standing  where  the  rock  of  the  desert 
stoops  to  the  Nile  valley.  I  did  not  know  there  was  a  pillar 
there,  and  wondered  at  it  ;  and  it  grew  larger,  and  glided 
nearer,  becoming  like  the  form  of  a  man,  but  vast,  and  it  did 
not  move  its  feet,  but  glided,  like  a  pillar  of  sand.  And  as 
it  drew  nearer,  I  looked  by  chance  past  it,  towards  the  sun  ; 
and  saw  a  silver  cloud,  which  was  of  all  the  clouds  closest  to 
the  sun  (and  in  one  place  crossed  it),  draw  itself  back  from 
the  sun,  suddenly.  And  it  turned,  and  shot  towards  the 
dark  pillar  ;  leaping  in  an  arch,  like  an  arrow  out  of  a  bow. 
And  I  thought  it  was  lightning  ;  but  when  it  came  near  the 
shadowy  pillar,  it  sank  slowly  down  beside  it,  and  changed 
Into  the  shape  of  a  woman,  very  beautiful,  and  with  a 
strength  of  deep  calm  in  her  blue  eyes.  She  was  robed  to 
the  feet  with  a  white  robe ;  and  above  that,  to  her  knees, 

*  Note  ii. 


38  THE   PYRAMID   BUILDERS. 

by  the  cloud  which  I  had  seen  across  the  sun  ;  but  all  the 
golden  ripples  of  it  had  become  plumes,  so  that  it  had 
changed  into  two  bright  wings  like  those  of  a  vulture,  which 
wrapped  round  her  to  her  knees.  She  had  a  weaver's  shut- 
tle hanging  over  her  shoulder,  by  the  thread  of  it,  and  in  her 
left  hand,  arrows,  tipped  with  fire. 

Isabel  {clapping  her  hands).  Oh !  it  was  JSTeith,  it  was 
Neith !  I  know  now. 

L.  Yes;  it  was  Keith  herself;  and  as  the  two  great  spirits 
came  nearer  to  me,  I  saw  they  were  the  Brother  and  Sister 
— the  pillared  shadow  was  the  Greater  Pthah.*  And  I  heard 
them  speak,  and  the  sound  of  their  words  was  like  a  distant 
singing.  I  could  not  understand  the  words  one  by  one  ;  yet 
their  sense  came  to  me  ;  and  so  I  knew  that  Neith  had  come 
down  to  see  her  brother's  work,  and  the  work  that  he  had 
put  into  the  mind  of  the  king  to  make  his  servants  do.  And 
she  was  displeased  at  it ;  because  she  saw  only  pieces  of  dark 
clay ;  and  no  porphyry,  nor  marble,  nor  any  fair  stone  that 
men  might  engrave  the  figures  of  the  gods  upon.  And  she 
blamed  her  brother,  and  said,  '  Oh,  Lord  of  truth !  is  this 
then  thy  will,  that  men  should  mould  only  four-square  pieces 
•>f  clay :  and  the  forms  of  the  gods  no  more  ?'  Then  the 
Lord  of  truth  sighed,  and  said,  '  Oh  !  sister,  in  truth  they  do 
not  love  us  ;  why  should  they  set  up  our  images  ?     Let  them 

*  Note  iii. 


THE   PYRAMID   BUILDERS.  39 

<lo  what  they  may,  and  not  lie — let  them  make  their  clay 
four-square  ;  and  labour  ;  and  perish.' 

Then  Neith's  dark  blue  eyes  grew  darker,  and  she  said, 
'  Oli,  Lord  of  truth!  why  should  they  love  us?  their  love  is 
vain  ;  or  fear  us  ?«for  their  fear  is  base.  Yet  let  them  testify 
of  us,  that  they  knew  we  lived  for  ever.' 

But  the  Lord  of  truth  answered,  'They  know,  and  yet  they 
know  not.  Let  them  keep  silence ;  for  their  silence  only  is 
truth.' 

But  Neith  answered,  '  Brother,  wilt  thou  also  make 
league  with  Death,  because  Death  is  true  ?  Oh !  thou 
potter,  who  hast  cast  these  human  things  from  thy  wheel, 
many  to  dishonour,  and  few  to  honour ;  wilt  thou  not 
let  them  so  much  as  see  my  face ;  but  slay  them  in 
slavery?' 

But  Pthah  only  answered,  '  Let  tbem  build,  sister,  let  them 
build.' 

And  Neith  answered,  'What  shall  they  build,  if  I  build  not 
with  them  ?' 

And  Pthah  drew  with  his  measuring  rod  upon  the  sand, 
And  I  saw  suddenly,  drawn  on  the  sand,  the  outlines  of  great 
cities,  and  of  vaults,  and  domes,  and  aqueducts,  and  bastions, 
and  towers,  greater  than  obelisks,  covered  with  black  clouds. 
And  the  wind  blew  ripples  of  sand  amidst  the  lines  that 
Pthah  drew,  and  the  moving  sand  was  like  the  inarching  ol 


40  THE   PYRAMID   BUILDERS. 

men.  But  I  saw  that  wherever  Neith  looked  at  the  lints, 
they  faded,  and  were  effaced. 

'Oli,  Brother!'  she  said  at  last,  'what  is  this  vanity?  If  L, 
who  am  Lady  of  wisdom,  do  not  mock  the  children  of  men, 
why  shouldst  thou  mock  them,  who  art  Lord  of  truth  ?'  But 
Pthah  answered,  'They  thought  to  bind  me;  and  they  shall 
be  bound.     They  shall  labour  in  the  fire  for  vanity.' 

And  Neith  said,  looking  at  the  sand,  '  Brother,  there  is  no 
true  labour  here — there  is  only  weary  life  and  wasteful  death.' 

And  Pthah  answered,  '  Is  it  not  truer  labour,  sister,  than 
thy  sculpture  of  dreams  ?' 

Then  Neith  smiled  ;  and  stopped  suddenly 

She  looked  to  the  sun ;  its  edge  touched  the  horizon-edge 
of  the  desert.  Then  she  looked  to  the  long  heaps  of  pieces 
of  clay,  that  lay,  each  with  its  blue  shadow,  by  the  lake  shore. 

'  Brother,'  she  said,  '  how  long  will  this  pyramid  of  thine 
be  in  building  ?  ' 

'  Thoth  will  have  sealed  the  scroll  of  the  years  ten  times, 
before  the  summit  is  laid.' 

'  Brother,  thou  knowest  not  how  to  teach  thy  children  to 
labour,'  answered  Neith.  'Look!  I  must  follow Phre  beyond 
Alias;  shall  I  build  your  pyramid  for  you  before  he  goes 
down?'  And  Pthah  answered,  'Yea,  sister,  if  thou  canst  put 
thy  winged  shoulders  to  such  work.'  And  Neith  drew  her- 
self to  her  height ;  and  I  heard  a  clashing  pass  through  the 


THE    PYRAMID    BUILDERS.  41 

plumes  of  her  wings,  and  the  asp  stood  up  on  hei  helmet, 
and  fire  gathei*ed  in  her  eyes.  And  she  took  one  of  the 
flaming  arrows  out  of  the  sheaf  in  her  left  hand,  and 
stretched  it  out  over  the  heaps  of  clay.  And  they  rose  up 
like  flights  of  locusts,  and  spread  themselves  in  the  air,  so  that 
it  grew  dark  in  a  moment.  Then  Neith  designed  them 
places  with  her  arrow  point ;  and  they  drew  into  ranks,  like 
dark  clouds  laid  level  at  morning.  Then  Neith  pointed  with 
her  arrow  to  the  north,  and  to  the  south,  and  to  the  east,  and 
to  the  west,  and  the  flying  motes  of  earth  drew  asunder  into 
four  great  ranked  crowds ;  and  stood,  one  in  the  north,  and 
one  in  the  south,  and  one  in  the  east,  and  one  in  the  west — ■ 
one  against  another.  Then  Neith  spread  her  wings  wide  for 
an  instant,  and  closed  them  with  a  sound  like  the  sound  of 
a  rushing  sea ;  and  waved  her  hand  towards  the  foundation 
of  the  pyramid,  where  it  was  laid  on  the  brow  of  the  desert. 
And  the  four  flocks  drew  together  and  sank  tbwn,  like  sea- 
birds  settling  to  a  level  rock,  and  when  they  met,  there  was 
a  sudden  flame,  as  broad  as  the  pyramid,  and  as  high  as  the 
clouds ;  and  it  dazzled  me ;  and  I  closed  my  eyes  for  an 
instant;  and  when  I  looked  again,  the  pyramid  stood  on  its 
rock,  perfect;  and  purple  with  the  light  from  the  edge  of  the 
sinking  sun. 

Tue   younger    Children    (variously   pleased).     I'm    6(J 
glad !     How  nice  !     But  what  did  Pthah  say  ? 


42  THE   PYRAMID   BUILDEES. 

L.  Neith  did  not  wait  to  heal"  what  he  would  say.  When 
I  turned  back  to  look  at  her,  she  was  gone ;  and  1  only  saw 
the  level  white  cloud  form  itself  again,  close  to  the  arch  of 
the  sun  as  it  sank.  And  as  the  last  edge  of  the  sun  di& 
appeared,  the  form  of  Pthah  faded  into  a  mighty  shadow, 
and  so  passed  away. 

Egypt.  And  was  Neith's  pyramid  left  ? 

L.  Yes ;  hut  you  could  not  think,  Egypt,  what  a  strange 

feeling  of  utter  loneliness  came  over  me  when  the  presence 

of  the  two  gods  passed  away.     It  seemed  as  if  I  had  never 

known  what  it  was  to  be  alone  before  ;  and  the  unbroken 

line  of  the  desert  was  terrible. 
* 
Egypt.  I  used  to  feel  that,  when  I  was  queen :  sometimes 

I  had  to  carve  gods,  for  company,  all  over  my  palace.     I 
would  fain  have  seen  real  ones,  if  I  could. 

L.  But  listen  a  moment  yet,  for  that  was  not  quite  all  my 
dream.  The  twilight  drew  swiftly  to  the  dark,  and  I  could 
hardly  see  the  great  pyramid;  when  there  came  a  heavy 
murmuring  sound  in  the  air;  and  a  horned  beetle,  with  ter- 
rible claws,  fell  on  the  sand  at  my  feet,  with  a  blow  like  the 
beat  of  a  hammer.  Then  it  stood  up  on  its  hind  claws,  and 
waved  its  pincers  at  me :  and  its  fore  claws  became  strong 
arms,  and  hands;  one  grasping  real  iron  pincers,  and  the 
other  a  huge  hammer ;  and  it  had  a  helmet  on  its  head,  with 
out  any  eyelet  holes,  that  I  could  see.     And  its  two  hind 


THE   PYRAMID   BITTLDEES.  43 

claws  became  strong  crooked  legs,  with  feet  bent  inwards. 
And  so  there  stood  by  me  a  dwarf,  in  glossy  black  armour, 
ribbed  and  embossed  like  a  beetle's  back,  leaning  on  his  ham- 
mer. And  I  could  not  speak  for  wonder;  but  he  spoke  with 
a  murmur  like  the  dying  away  of  a  beat  upon  a  bell.  He 
said,  '  I  will  make  Neith's  great  pyramid  small.  I  am  the 
lower  Pthah;  and  have  power  over  fire.  I  can  "wither  the 
strong  things,  and  strengthen  the  weak ;  and  everything  that 
is  great  I  can  make  small,  and  everything  that  is  little  I  can 
make  great.'  Then  he  turned  to  the  angle  of  the  pyramid 
and  limped  towards  it.  And  the  pyramid  grew  deep  purple ; 
and  then  red  like  blood,  and  then  pale  rose-colour,  like  fire. 
And  I  saw  that  it  glowed  with  fire  from  within.  And  the 
lower  Pthah  touched  it  with  the  hand  that  held  the  pincers ; 
and  it  sank  down  like  the  sand  in  an  hour-glass, — then  drew 
itself  together,  and  sank,  still,  and  became  nothing,  it  seemed 
to  me ;  but  the  armed  dwarf  stooped  down,  and  took  it  into 
his  hand,  and  brought  it  to  me,  saying,  '  Everything  that  is 
great  I  can  make  like  this  pyramid;  and  give  into  men's 
hands  to  destroy.'  And  I  saw  that  he  had  a  little  pyramid 
in  his  hand,  with  as  many  courses  in  it  as  the  large  one ;  and 
built  like  that, — only  so  small.  And  because  it  glowed  still, 
I  was  afraid  to  touch  it ;  but  Pthah  said,  '  Touch  it — for  1 
have  bound  the  fire  within  it,  so  that  it  cannot  burn.'  So  I 
touched  it,  and  took  it  into  my  own  hand;  and  it  was  cold; 


44  THE   PYRAMID   BUILDERS. 

only  red,  like  a  ruby.  And  Pthah  laughed,  and  became  like  a 
beetle  again,  and  buried  himself  in  the  sand,  fiercely ;  throw- 
ing it  back  over  his  shoulders.  And  it  seemed  to  me  as  if 
lie  would  draw  me  down  with  him  into  the  sand;  and  1 
started  back,  and  woke,  holding  the  little  pyramid  so  fast  in 
my  hand  that  it  hurt  me. 

Egypt.  Holding  what  in  your  hand? 

L.  The  little  pyramid. 

Egypt.  Neith's  pyramid  ? 

L.  Neith's,  I  believe  ;  though  not  built  for  Asychis.  I 
know  only  that  it  is  a  little  rosy  transparent  pyramid,  built 
of  more  courses  of  bricks  than  I  can  count,  it  being  made  so 
small.  You  don't  believe  me,  of  course,  Egyptian  infidel ; 
but  there  it  is.     {Giving  crystal  of  rose  Fluor.) 

{Confused  examination  by  crowded  audience,  over  each 
other's  shoulders  and  under  each  other's  arms.  Disappoint- 
ment begins  to  manifest  itself) 

Sibyl  {not  quite  knowing  why  she  and  others  are  disap- 
pointed).    But  you  showed  us  this  the  other  day! 

L.  Yes  ;  but  you  would  not  look  at  it  the  other  day. 

Sibyl.  But  was  all  that  fine  dream  only  about  this  ? 

L.  What  finer  thing  could  a  dream  be  about  than  this  V 
It  is  small,  if  you  will ;  but  when  you  begin  to  think  of  things 
rightly,  the  ideas  of  smallness  and  largeness  pass  away.  The 
making  of  this  pyramid  was  in  reality  just  as  wonderful  as 


THE    PYRAMID    BUILDERS.  45 

the  dream  I  have  been  telling  you,  and  just  as  incomprehen- 
sible. It  was  not,  I  suppose,  as  swift,  but  quite  as  grand 
things  are  done  as  swiftly.  When  Neith  makes  crystals  of 
snow,  it  needs  a  great  deal  more  marshalling  of  the  atoms, 
by  her  flaming  arrows,  than  it  does  to  make  crystals  like  this 
one ;  and  that  is  done  in  a  moment. 

Egypt.  But  how  you  do  puzzle  us  !  Why  do  you  say  Keith 
does   it?      You   don't  mean   that   she   is   a   real  spirit,   do 

you  ? 

L.  What  1  mean,  is  of  little  consequence.  What  the 
Egyptians  meant,  who  called  her  '  Neith,' — or  Homer,  who 
called  her  'Athena,' — or  Solomon,  who  called  her  by  a  word 
which  the  Greeks  render  as  'Sophia,'  you  must  judge  for 
yourselves.  But  her  testimony  is  always  the  same,  and  all 
nations  have  received  it :  'I  was  by  Him  as  one  brought  up 
with  Him,  and  I  was  daily  His  delight ;  rejoicing  in  the 
habitable  parts  of  the  earth,  and  my  delights  were  »vith  the 
sons  of  men.' 

Mary.  But  is  not  that  only  a  personification  ? 

L.  If  it  be,  what  will  you  gain  by  unpersoni/flng  it,  or 
what  right  have  you  to  do  so?  Cannot  you  accept  the  image 
given  you,  in  its  life;  and  listen,  like  children,  to  the 
words  which  chiefly  belong  to  you  as  children :  '  I  lovo 
them  that  love  me,  and  those  that  seek  me  early  shall  find 
me?' 


46  THE   PYRAMID    BUILDERS. 

( They  are  all  quiet  for  a  minute  or  two ;  questions  begin 
to  appear  in  their  eyes.) 

I  cannot  talk  to  you  any  more  to-day.  Take  that  rose- 
crystal  away  with  you,  and  think. 


Cccture  3. 
THE  CRYSTAL  LIFE, 


LECTURE  m. 

THE  CRYSTAL  LIFE. 

A  very  dull  Lecture,  wilfully  brought  upon  themselves  by  the 
elder  children.  Some  of  the  young  ones  have,  however, 
managed  to  get  in  by  mistake.    Sceve,  the  Schoolroom. 

L.  So  I  am  to  stand  up  here  merely  to  be  asked  questions, 
to-day,  Miss  Mary,  am  I  ? 

Mary.  Yes ,  and  you  must  answer  them  plainly ;  without 
telling  us  any  more  stories.  You  are  quite  spoiling  tho 
children :  the  poor  little  things'  heads  are  turning  round  like 
kaleidoscopes ;  and  they  don't  know  in  the  least  what  you 
mean.  Nor  do  we  old  ones,  either,  for  that  matter :  to-day 
you  must  really  tell  us  nothing  but  facts. 

L.  I  am  sworn ;  but  you  won't  like  it,  a  bit. 

Mary.  Now,  first  of  all,  what  do  you  mean  by  '  bricks  ?' 
— Are  the  smallest  particles  of  minerals  all  of  some  accurate 
shape,  like  bricks  ? 

L.  I  do  not  know,  Miss  Mary  ;  I  do  not  even  know  if  any- 
body knows.  The  smallest  atoms  which  are  visibly  and  prac- 
tically put  together  to  make  large  crystals,  may  better  be 
described  as  'limited  in  fixed  directions'  than  as  'of  fixed 


50  THE   CRYSTAL  LIFE. 

forms.'  But  I  can  tell  you  nothing  clear  about  ultimate 
atoms :  you  will  find  the  idea  of  little  bricks,  or,  perhaps,  of 
tittle  spheres,  available  for  all  the  uses  you  will  have  to  put 
it  to. 

Mary.  Well,  it's  very  provoking ;  one  seems  always  to  be 
stopped  just  when  one  is  coming  to  the  very  thing  one  wants 
to  know. 

L.  No,  Mary,  for  we  should  not  wish  to  know  anything 
but  what  is  easily  and  assuredly  knowable.  There's  no  end 
to  it.  If  I  could  show  you,  or  myself,  a  group  of  ultimate 
atoms,  quite  clearly,  in  this  magnifying  glass,  we  should  both 
be  presently  vexed  because  we  could  not  break  them  in  two 
pieces,  and  see  their  insides. 

Mary.  Well  then,  next,  what  do  you  mean  by  the  flying 
of  the  bricks  ?  What  is  it  the  atoms  do,  that  is  like 
flying? 

L.  When  they  are  dissolved,  or  uncrystallised,  they  are 
really  separated  from  each  other,  like  a  swarm  of  gnats  in 
the  air,  or  like  a  shoal  of  fish  in  the  sea ; — generally  at  about 
equal  distances.  In  currents  of  solutions,  or  at  different 
depths  of  them,  one  part  may  be  more  full  of  the  dissolved 
atoms  than  another ;  but  on  the  whole,  you  may  think  of 
them  as  equidistant,  like  the  spots  in  the  print  of  your  gown. 
If  they  are  separated  by  force  of  heat  only,  the  substance  ia 
said  to  be  melted ;  if  they  are  separated  by  any  other  sub 


THE   CRYSTAL  LIFE.  51 

stance,  as  particles  of  sugar  by  water,  they  are  said  to  De 
'  dissolved.'     Note  this  distinction  carefully,  all  of  you. 

Dora.  I  will  be  very  particular.  When  next  you  tell  ma 
there  isn't  sugar  enough  in  your  tea,  I  will  say,  'It  is  not  yet 
dissolved,  sir.' 

L.  I  tell  you  what  shall  be  dissolved,  Miss  Dora;  and 
that's  the  present  parliament,  if  the.  members  get  too  saucy. 

(Dora  folds  her  hands  and  casts  down  her  eyes.) 

L.  {proceeds  in  state).  Now,  Miss  Mary,  you  know  already, 
I  believe,  that  nearly  everything  will  melt,  under  a  sufficient 
heat,  like  wax.  Limestone  melts  (under  pressure) ;  sand 
melts  ;  granite  melts  ;  the  lava  of  a  volcano  is  a  mixed  mas? 
of  many  kinds  of  rocks,  melted  :  and  any  melted  substance 
nearly  always,  if  not  always,  crystallises  as  it  cools ;  the  more 
slowly  the  more  perfectly.  Water  melts  at  what  we  call  the 
freezing,  but  might  just  as  wisely,  though  not  as  conve- 
niently, call  the  melting,  point ;  and  radiates  as  it  cools  into 
the  most  beautiful  of  all  known  crystals.  Glass  melts  at  a 
greater  heat,  and  will  crystallise,  if  you  let  it  cool  slowly 
enough,  in  stars,  much  like  snow.  Gold  needs  more  heat  to 
melt  it,  but  crystallises  also  exquisitely,  as  I  will  presently 
show  you.  Arsenic  and  sulphur  crystallise  from  their  va- 
pours. Now  in  any  of  these  cases,  either  of  melted,  dis- 
solved, or  vaporous  bodies,  the  particles  are  usually  separated 
from  each  other,  either  by  heat,  or  by  an  intermediate  sub 


52  THE   CRYSTAL  LIFE. 

stance  ;  and  in  crystallising  they  are  both  brought  nearer  to 
each  other,  and  packed,  so  as  to  fit  as  closely  as  possible . 
the  essential  part  of  the  business  being  not  the  bringing 
together,  but  the  packing.  Who  packed  your  trunk  for  you, 
last  holidays,  Isabel  ? 

Isabel.  Lily  does,  always. 

L.  And  how  much  can  you  allow  for  Lily's  good  packing, 
in  guessing  what  will  go  into  the  trunk  ? 

Isabel.  Oh !  I  bring  twice  as  much  as  the  trunk  holds. 
Lily  always  gets  everything  in. 

Lilt.  Ah !  but,  Isey,  if  you  only  knew  what  a  time  it 
takes !  and  since  you've  had  those  great  hard  buttons  on 
your  frocks,  I  can't  do  anything  with  them.  Buttons  won't 
go  anywhere,  you  know. 

L.  Yes,  Lily,  it  would  be  well  if  she  only  knew  what  a 
(nine  it  takes  ;  and  I  wish  any  of  us  knew  what  a  time  crys- 
tallisation takes,  for  that  is  consummately  fine  packing.  The 
particles  of  the  rock  are  thrown  down,  just  as  Isabel  brings 
her  things— in  a  heap ;  and  innumerable  Lilies,  not  of  the 
valley,  but  of  the  rock,  come  to  pack  them.  But  it  takes 
such  a  time ! 

However,  the  best — out  and  out  the  best — way  of  under- 
standing the  thing,  is  to  crystallise  yourselves. 

Tiie  Audience.  Ourselves ! 

L.  Yes;  not  mex-ely  as  you  did  the  other  day,  carelessly, 


THE    CRYSTAL   LIFE.  53 

on  the  schoolroom  forms  ;  but  carefully  and  finely,  out  in  the 
playground.  You  can  play  at  crystallisation  there  as  much 
as  you  please. 

Kathleen  and  Jessie.  Oh  !  how  ? — how  ? 

L.  First,  you  must  put  yourselves  together,  as  close  as  you 
<an,  in  the  middle  of  the  grass,  and  form,  for  first  practice, 
any  figure  you  like. 

Jessie.  Any  dancing  figure,  do  you  mean  ? 

L.  No ;  I  mean  a  square,  or  a  cross,  or  a  diamond.  Any 
figure  you  like,  standing  close  together.  You  had  better 
outline  it  first  on  the  turf,  with  sticks,  or  pebbles,  so  as  to 
see  that  it  is  rightly  drawn  ;  then  get  into  it  and  enlarge  or 
diminish  it  at  one  side,  till  you  are  all  quite  in  it,  and  no 
empty  space  left. 

Dora.  Crinoline  and  all  ? 

L.  The  crinoline  may  stand  eventually  for  rough  crystal- 
line surface,  unless  you  pin  it  in  ;  and  then  you  may  make  a 
polished  crystal  of  yourselves. 

Lily.  Oh,  we'll  pin  it  in — we'll  pin  it  in  ! 

L.  Then,  when  you  are  all  in  the  figure,  let  every  one  note 
her  place,  and  who  is  next  her  on  each  side  ;  and  let  the  out 
eiders  count  how  many  places  they  stand  from  the  corners. 

Kathleen.  Yes,  yes, — and  then  ? 

L.  Then  you  must  scatt«r  all  over  the  playground — right 
over  it  from  side  to  side,  and  end  to  end  •  aud  put  yourselves 


64  THE    CRYSTAL    LIFE. 

all  at  equal  distances  from  each  other,  everywhere.  Too 
needn't  mind  doing  it  very  accurately,  but  so  as  to  be  marly 
equidistant ;  not  less  than  about  three  yards  apart  from  each 
other,  on  every  side. 

Jessie.  We  can  easily  cut  pieces  of  string  of  equal  length, 
to  hold.    And  then  ? 

L.  Then,  at  a  given  signal,  let  everybody  walk,  at  the 
same  rate,  towards  the  outlined  figure  in  the  middle.  Tou 
had  better  sing  as  you  walk ;  that  will  keep  you  in  good 
lime.  And  as  you  close  in  towards  it,  let  each  take  her 
place,  and  the  next  comers  fit  themselves  in  beside  the  first 
ones,  till  you  are  all  in  the  figure  again. 

Kathleen.   Oh !    how  we  shall  run  against  each  other 
What  fun  it  will  be  ! 

L.  No,  no,  Miss  Katie  ;  I  can't  allow  any  running  against 
each  other.  The  atoms  never  do  that,  whatever  human  crea- 
tures do.  Tou  must  all  know  your  places,  and  find  your  way 
to  them  without  jostling. 

Lily.  But  how  ever  shall  we  do  that  ? 

Isabel.  Mustn't  the  ones  in  the  middle  be  the  nearest,  and 
the  outside  ones  farther  off — when  we  go  away  to  scatter,  I 
mean  ? 

L.  Yes ;  you  must  be  very  careful  to  keep  your  order ; 
you  will  soon  find  out  how  to  clo  it ;  it  is  only  like  soldiers 
forming  square,  except  that  each  must  stand  still  in  her  place 


THE   CRYSTAL   LIFE.  55 

as  she  reaches  it,  and  the  others  come  round  her ;  and  you 
will  have  much  more  complicated  figures,  afterwards,  to 
form,  than  squares. 

Isabel.  I'll  put  a  stone  at  my  place :  then  I  shall  know 
it. 

L.  You  might  each  nail  a  bit  of  paper  to  the  turf,  at  your 
place,  with  your  name  upon  it :  but  it  would  be  of  no  us& 
for  if  you  don't  know  .your  places,  you  will  make  a  fine  piece 
of  business  of  it,  while  you  are  looking  for  your  names. 
And,  Isabel,  if  with  a  little  head,  and  eyes,  and  a  brain  (all 
of  them  very  good  and  serviceable  of  their  kind,  as  such 
things  go),  you  think  you  cannot  know  your  place  without  a 
stone  at  it,  after  examining  it  well, — how  do  you  think  each 
atom  knows  its  place,  when  it  never  was  there  before,  and 
there's  no  stone  at  it  ? 

Isabel.  But  does  every  atom  know  its  place  ? 

L.  How  else  could  it  get  there  ? 

Mary.  Are  they  not  attracted  into  their  places  ? 

L.  Cover  a  piece  of  paper  with  spots,  at  equal  intervals ; 
and  then  imagine  any  kind  of  attraction  you  choose,  or  any 
law  of  attraction,  to  exist  between  the  spots,  and  try  how, 
on  that  permitted  supposition,  you  can  attract  them  into  the 
figure  of  a  Maltese  cross,  in  the  middle  of  the  paper. 

Mary  {having  tried  it).  Yes ;  I  see  that  I  cannot : — one 
would   need   all  kinds  of  attractions,  in  different  ways,  at 


56  THE   CRYSTAL  LIFE. 

different  places.    But  you  do  not  mean  that  the  atoms  are 
alive  ? 

L.  What  is  it  to  be  alive  ? 

Dora.  There  now "  you're  going  to  be  provoking,  I  know 

L.  I  do  not  see  why  it  should  be  provoking  to  be  asked 
what  it  is  to  be  alive.  Do  you  think  you  don't  know  whether 
you  are  alive  or  not  ? 

(Isabel  skips  to  the  end  of  the  ropm  and  back.) 

L.  Yes,  Isabel,  that's  all  very  fine ;  and  you  and  I  may  call 
that  being  alive :  but  a  modern  philosopher  calls  it  being  in  a 
'  mode  of  motion.'  It  requires  a  certain  quantity  of  heat  to 
take  you  to  the  sideboard ;  and  exactly  the  same  quantity  to 
bring  you  back  again.     That's  all. 

Isabel.  No,  it  isn't.     And  besides,  I'm  not  hot. 

L.  I  am,  sometimes,  at  t^e  way  they  talk.  However,  you 
know,  Isabel,  you  might  have  been  a  particle  of  a  mineral, 
and  yet  have  been  carried  round  the  room,  or  anywhere  else, 
by  chemical  forces,  in  the  liveliest  way. 

Isabel.  Yes ;  but  I  wasn't  carried :  I  carried  myself. 

L.  The  fact  is,  mousie,  the  difficulty  is  not  so  much  to 
say  what  makes  a  thing  alive,  as  what  makes  it  a  Self.  As 
soon  as  you  are  shut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  universe  into  a 
Self,  you  begin  to  be  alive. 

Violet  {indignant).  Oh,  surely — surely  that  cannot  be  so. 
Is  not  all  the  life  of  the  soul  in  communion,  not  separation  1 


THE   CRYSTAL  LIFE.  51 

L.  There  can  be  no  communion  where  there  is  no  distinc 
tiou.  "But  we  shall  be  in  an  abyss  of  metaphysics  presently, 
if  we  don't  look  out ;  and  besides,  we  must  not  be  too  grand, 
to-day,  for  the  younger  children.  We'll  be  grand,  some  day, 
by  ourselves,  if  we  must.  (I7ie  younger  children  are  not 
pleased,  and  prepare  to  remonstrate  /  but,  knowing  by  expe- 
rience, that  all  conversations  in  which  the  word  '  communion' 
occurs,  are  unintelligible,  think  better  of  it.)  Meantime,  for 
broad  answer  about  the  atoms.  I  do  not  think  we  should 
use  the  word  'life,'  of  any  energy  which  does  not  belong  to  a 
given  form.  A  seed,  or  an  egg,  or  a  young  animal,  are  pro- 
perly called  'alive'  with  resi>ect  to  the  force  belonging  to 
those  forms,  which  consistently  developes  that  form,  and  no 
other.  But  the  force  which  crystallises  a  mineral  appears 
to  be  chiefly  external,  and  it  does  not  produce  an  entirely 
determinate  and  individual  form,  limited  in  size,  but  only  an 
aggregation,  in  which  some  limiting  laws  must  be  observed. 

Maey.  But  I  do  not  see  much  difference,  that  way, 
between  a  crystal  and  a  tree. 

L.  Add,  then,  that  the  mode   of  the  energy  in  a  living 

thing   implies  a   continual    change   in  its   elements ;    and   a 

period  for  its  end.     So  you  may  define  life  by  its  attached 

negative,   death;    and   still   more   by  its   attached   positive, 

birth.     But  I  won't  be  plagued  any  more  about  this,  just 

now ;    if  you   choose  to  think  the   crystals   alive,   do,  and 

3* 


58  THE   CRYSTAL  LIFE. 

welcome.  Rocks  have  always  been  called  '  living'  in  then 
native  place. 

Mahy.  There's  one  question  more;  then  I've  done. 

L.  Only  one  ? 

Mary.  Only  one. 

L.  But  if  it  is  answered,  won't  it  turn  into  two  ? 

Mary.  No  ;  I  think  it  will  remain  single,  and  be  comfort 
able. 

L.  Let  me  hear  it. 

Mary.  You  know,  we  are  to  crystallise  ourselves  out  of 
the  whole  playground.  Now,  what  playground  have  the 
minerals?  Where  are  they  scattered  before  they  are 
crystallised ;  and  where  are  the  crystals  generally  made  ? 

L.  That  sounds  to  me  more  like  three  questions  than  one, 
Mary.   If  it  is  only  one,  it  is  a  wide  one. 

Mary.  I  did  not  say  anything  about  the  width  of  it. 

L.  Well,  I  must  keep  it  within  the  best  compass  I  can. 
When  rocks  either  dry  from  a  moist  state,  or  cool  from  a 
heated  state,  they  necessarily  alter  in  bulk ;  and  cracks,  or 
open  spaces,  form  in  them  in  all  directions.  These  cracks 
must  be  filled  up  with  solid  matter,  or  the  rock  would  even- 
tually become  a  ruinous  heap.  So,  sometimes  by  water, 
sometimes  by  vapom*,  sometimes  nobody  knows  how,  crystal- 
usable  matter  is  brought  from  somewhere,  and  fastens  itself 
in  these  open  spaces,  so  as  to  bind  the  rock  together  again 


THE   CRYSTAL  LIFE.  59 

with  crystal  cement.  A  vast  quantity  of  hollows  aie  formed 
in  lavas  by  bubbles  of  gas,  just  as  the  holes  are  left  in  bread 
well  baked.  In  process  of  time  these  cavities  are  generally 
filled  with  various  crystals. 

Mary.  But  where  does  the  crystallising  substance  coma 
from  ? 

L.  Sometimes  out  of  the  rock  itself;  sometimes  from  below 
or  above,  through  the  veins.  The  entire  substance  of  the 
contracting  rock  may  be  filled  with  liquid,  pressed  into  it  so 
as  to  fill  every  pore ; — or  with  mineral  vapour ; — or  it  may 
be  so  charged  at  one  place,  and  empty  at  another.  There's 
no  end  to  the  '  may  be's.'  But  all  that  you  need  fancy,  for 
our  present  purpose,  is  that  hollows  in  the  rocks,  like  thfi 
caves  in  Derbyshire,  are  traversed  by  liquids  or  vapour  con- 
taining certain  elements  in  a  more  or  less  free  or  separate 
state,  which  crystallise  on  the  cave  walls. 

Sibyl.  There  now ; — Mary  has  had  all  her  questions  an- 
swered :  it's  my  turn  to  have  mine. 

L.  Ah,  there's  a  conspiracy  among  you,  I  see.  I  might 
have  guessed  as  much. 

Dora.  I'm  sure  you  ask  us  questions  enough  !  How  can 
you  have  the  heart,  when  you  dislike  so  to  be  asked  them 
yourself? 

L.  My  dear  child,  if  people  do  not  answer  questions,  it 
does  not  matter  how  many  they  are  asked,  because  they've 


60  THE   CRYSTAL   LIFE. 

do  trouble  with  them.  Now,  when  I  ask  you  questions,  1 
never  expect  to  be  answered  ;  but  when  you  ask  me,  you 
always  do  ;  and  it's  not  fair. 

Dora.  Very  well,  we  shall  understand,  next  time. 

Sibyl.  No,  but  seriously,  we  all  want  to  ask  one  thing 
more,  quite  dreadfully. 

L.  And  I  don't  want  to  be  asked  it,  quite  dreadfully ;  but 
you'll  have  your  own  way,  of  course. 

Sibyl.  We  none  of  us  understand  about  the  lower  Pthah. 
It  was  not  merely  yesterday ;  but  in  all  we  have  read  about 
him  in  Wilkinson,  or  in  any  book,  wre  cannot  understand 
what  the  Egyptians  put  their  god  into  that  ugly  little  de- 
formed shape  for. 

L.  Well,  I'm  glad  it's  that  sort  of  question ;  because  I  can 
answer  anything  I  like,  to  that. 

Egypt.  Anything  you  like  will  do  quite  well  for  us ;  we 
shall  be  pleased  with  the  answer,  if  you  are. 

L.  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,  most  gracious  queen ;  for  I 
must  begin  by  the  statement  that  queens  seem  to  have  dis- 
liked all  sorts  of  work,  in  those  days,  as  much  as  some  queens 
dislike  sewing  to-day. 

Egypt.  Now,  it's  too  bad!  and  just  when  I  was  trying  to 
gay  the  civillest  thing  I  could ! 

L.  But,  Egypt,  why  did  you  tell  me  you  disliked  sewing 
■o? 


THE   CBYSTAL  LIFE.  61 

Egypt.  Did  not  I  show  you  how  the  thread  cuts  my  fin- 
gers? and  I  always  get  cramp,  somehow,  in  my  neck,  if  I 
sew  long. 

L.  Well,  I  suppose  the  Egyptian  queens  thought  every 
body  got  cramp  in  their  neck,  if  they  sewed  long ;  and  that 
thread  always  cut  people's  fingers.  At  all  events,  every 
kind  of  manual  labour  was  despised  both  by  them,  and  the 
Greeks;  and,  while  they  owned  the  real  good  and  fruit  of  it, 
they  yet  held  it  a  degradation  to  all  who  practised  it.  Also, 
knowing  the  laws  of  life  thoroughly,  they  perceived  that  the 
special  practice  necessary  to  bring  any  manual  art  to  perfec- 
tion strengthened  the  body  distortediy ;  one  energy  or  mem- 
ber gaining  at  the  expense  of  the  rest.  They  especially 
dreaded  and  despised  any  kind  of  work  that  had  to  be  done 
near  fire :  yet,  feeling  what  they  owed  to  it  in  metal-work, 
as  the  basis  of  all  other  work,  they  expressed  this  mixed 
reverence  and  scorn  in  the  varied  types  of  the  lame  Hephaes- 
tus, and  the  lower  Pthah. 

Sibyl.  But  what  did  you  mean  by  making  him  say  '  Every- 
thing great  I  can  make  small,  and  everything  small  great  ?' 

L.  I  had  my  own  separate  meaning  in  that.  We  have  seen 
in  modern  times  the  power  of  the  lower  Pthah  developed 
in  a  separate  way,  which  no  Greek  nor  Egyptian  could  have 
conceived.  It  is  the  character  of  pure  and  eyeless  manual 
Labour  to  conceive   everything  as   subjected  to  it:   and,  in 


62  THE   CRYSTAL   LIFE. 

reality,  to  disgrace  and  diminish  all  that  is  so  subjected . 
aggrandising  itself,  and  the  thought  of  itself,  at  the  expense 
of  all  noble  things.  I  heard  an  orator,  and  a  good  one  too, 
at  the  Working  Men's  College,  the  other  clay,  make  a  great 
point  in  a  description  of  our  railroads ;  saying,  with  grandly 
conducted  emphasis,  '  They  have  made  man  greater,  and  the 
world  less.'  His  working  audience  were  mightily  pleased ; 
they  thought  it  so  very  fine  a  thing  to  be  made  bigger  them 
selves ;  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  less.  I  should  have 
enjoyed  asking  them  (but  it  would  have  been  a  pity — they 
were  so  pleased),  how  much  less  they  would  like  to  have  the 
world  made ; — and  whether,  at  present,  those  of  them  really 
felt  the  biggest  men,  who  lived  in  the  least  houses. 

Sibyl.  But  then,  why  did  you  make  Pthah  say  that  he 
could  make  weak  things  strong,  and  small  things  great  ? 

L.  My  dear,  he  is  a  boaster  and  self-assertor,  by  nature ; 
but  it  is  so  far  true.  For  instance,  we  used  to  have  a  fair 
in  our  neighbourhood — a  very  fine  fair  we  thought  it.  You 
never  saw  such  an  one ;  but  if  you  look  at  the  engraving  of 
Turner's  '  St.  Catherine's  Hill,'  you  will  see  what  it  was  like. 
There  were  curious  booths,  carried  on  poles ;  and  peep-shows ; 
and  music,  with  plenty  of  drums  and  cymbals;  and  much 
barley-sugar  and  gingerbread,  and  the  like :  and  in  the  alleys 
of  this  fair  the  London  populace  would  enjoy  themselves, 
after  their  fashion,  very  thoroughly.     Well,  the  little  Pthah 


THE    CRYSTAL  LIFE,  63 

set  to  work  upon  it  one  day ;  he  made  the  wooden  poles  into 
iron  ones,  and  put  them  across,  like  his  own  crooked  legs, 
so  that  you  always  fall  over  them  if  you-  don't  look  where 
you  are  going ;  and  he  turned  all  the  canvas  into  panes  of 
glass,  and  put  it  up  on  his  iron  cross-poles ;  and  made  all  the 
little  booths  into  one  great  booth ; — and  people  said  it  was 
very  fine,  and  a  new  style  of  architecture  ;  and  Mr.  Dickens 
said  nothing  was  ever  like  it  in  Fairy -land,  which  was  very 
true.  And  then  the  little  Pthah  set  to  work  to  put  fine  fair- 
ings in  it ;  and  he  painted  the  Nineveh  bulls  afresh,  with  the 
blackest  eyes  he  could  paint  (because  he  had  none  himself), 
and  He  got  the  angels  down  from  Lincoln  choir,  and  gilded 
their  wings  like  his  gingerbread  of  old  times ;  and  he  sent 
for  everything  else  he  could  think  of,  and  put  it  in  his  booth. 
There  are  the  casts  of  Niobe  and  her  children ;  and  the 
Chimpanzee ;  and  the  wooden  CafFres  and  New-Zealanders ; 
and  the  Shakespeare  House ;  and  Le  Grand  Blondin,  and  Le 
Petit  Blondin ;  aud  Handel ;  and  Mozart ;  and  no  end  of 
shops,  and  buns,  and  beer;  and  all  the  little-Pthah- worship- 
pers say,  never  was  anything  so  sublime ! 

Sibyl.  Now,  do  you  mean  to  say  you  never  go  to  these 
Crystal  Palace  concerts  ?     They're  as  good  as  good  can  be. 

L.  I  don't  go  to  the  thundering  things  with  a  million  ol 
bad  voices  in  them.  When  I  want  a  song,  I  get  Julia  Man 
nering  and  Lucy  Bertram  and  Counsellor  Pleydell  to  sing 


64  THE   CBYSTAL  LIFE. 

'We  be  three  poor  Mariners' to  me;  then  I've  noheadactt 
next  morning.  But  I  do  go  to  the  smaller  concerts,  when  1 
can  ;  for  they  are  Very  good,  as  you  say,  Sibyl:  and  I  always 
get  a  reserved  seat  somewhere  near  the  orchestra,  where  I 
am  sure  I  can  see  the  kettle-drummer  drum. 

Sibyl.  Now  do  be  serious,  for  one  miuute. 

L.  I  am  serious — never  was  more  so.  You  know  one  can't 
see  the  modulation  of  violinists'  fingers,  but  one  can  see  the 
vibration  of  the  drummer's  hand;  and  it's  lovely. 

Sibyl.  But  fancy  going  to  a  concert,  not  to  hear,  but  to 
see ! 

L.  Yes,  it  is  very  absurd.  The  quite  right  thing,  I  believe, 
is  to  go  there  to  talk.  I  confess,  however,  that  in  most 
music,  when  very  well  done,  the  doing  of  it  is  to  me  the 
chiefly  interesting  part  of  the  business.  I'm  always  thinking 
how  good  it  would  be  for  the  fat,  supercilious  people,  who 
care  so  little  for  their  half-crown's  worth,  to  be  set  to  try 
and  do  a  half-crown's  wortb  of  anything  like  it. 

Mary.  But  surely  that  Crystal  Palace  is  a  great  good  and 
help  to  the  people  of  London  ? 

L.  The  fresh  air  of  the  Norwood  hills  is,  or  was,  my  dear ; 
but  they  are  spoiling  that  with  smoke  as  fast  as  they  can. 
And  the  palace  (as  they  call  it)  is  a  better  place  for  them,  by 
much,  than  the  old  fair  ;  and  it  is  always  there,  instead  of  for 
three  days  only;  and  it  shuts  up  at  proper  hours  of  night 


THE    CRYSTAL    LIFE.  65 

And  good  use  may  be  made  of  the  things  in  it,  if  you  knew 
how:  but  as  for  its  teaching  the  people,  it  will  teach  them 
nothing  but  the  lowest  of  the  lower  Pthah's  work — nothing 
but  hammer  and  tongs.  I  saw  a  wonderful  piece,  of  his 
doing,  in  the  place,  only  the  other  day.  Some  unhappy 
metal-worker — I  am  not  sure  if  it  was  not  a  metal- working 
firm — had  taken  three  years  to  make  a  Golden  eagle. 

Sibyl.  Of  real  gold  ? 

L.  No ;  of  bronze,  or  copper,  or  some  of  their  foul  patent 
metals — it  is  no  matter  what.  I  meant  a  model  of  our  chief 
British  eagle.  Every  feather  was  made  separately ;  and 
every  filament  of  every  feather  separately,  and  so  joined  on  ; 
and  all  the  quills  modelled  of  the  right  length  and  right  sec- 
tion, and  at  last  the  whole  cluster  of  them  fastened  together. 
You  know,  children,  I  don't  think  much  of  my  own  drawing; 
but  take  my  proud  word  for  once,  that  when  I  go  to  the 
Zoological  Gardens,  and  happen  to  have  a  bit  of  chalk  in  my 
pocket,  and  the  Grey  Harpy  will  sit,  without  screwing  his 
head  round,  for  thirty  seconds, — I  can  do  a  better  thing  of 
him  in  that  time  than  the  three  years'  work  of  this  industri- 
ous firm.  For,  during  the  thirty  seconds,  the  eagle  is  my 
object, — not  myself;  and  during  the  three  years,  the  firm's 
object,  in  every  fibre  of  bronze  it  made,  was  itself,  and  not 
the  eagle.  That  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  little  Pthah's 
having  no  eyes— he  can  see  only  himself.    The  Egyptian  beotle 


66  THE   CRYSTAL    LIFE. 

was  not  quite  the  full  type  of  him ;  our  northern  ground 
beetle  is  a  truer  one.  It  is  beautiful  to  see  it  at  work,  gather- 
ing its  treasures  (such  as  they  are)  iuto  little  round  balls ;  and 
pushing  them  home  with  the  strong  wrong  end  of  it, — head 
downmost  all  the  way, — like  a  modern  political  economist 
with  his  ball  of  capital,  declaring  that  a  nation  can  stand  on 
its  vices  better  than  on  its  virtues.  But  away  with  you, 
children,  now,  for  I'm  getting  cross. 

Doea.  I'm  going  down  stairs ;  I  shall  take  care,  at  any 
rate,  that  there  are  no  little  Pthahs  in  the  kitchen  cupboards 


Ctcture  4. 
THE   CRYSTAL    ORDERS. 


LECTURE  IV. 

TEE  CRYSTAL  ORDERS. 

A  working  Lecture,  in  the  large  Schoolroom;  with  experimental 
Interludes.     1  he  great  bell  has  rung  unexpectedly. 

Kathleen-  {entering  disconsolate,  though  first  at  the  sum- 
mons). Oh  dear,  oh  dear,  what  a  day !  Was  ever  anything 
bo  provoking !  just  when  we  wanted  to  crystallise  ourselves ; 
— and  I'm  sure  it's  going  to  rain  all  day  long 

L.  So  am  I,  Kate.  The  sky  has  quite  an  Irish  way  with  it. 
But  I  don't  see  why  Irish  girls  should  also  look  so  dismal. 
Fancy  that  you  don't  want  to  crystallise  yourselves :  you 
didn't,  the  day  before  yesterday,  and  you  were  not  unhappy 
when  it  rained  then. 

Florkie.  Ah !  but  we  do  want  to-day ;  and  the  rain's  so 
tiresome. 

L.  That  is  to  say,  children,  that  because  you  are  all  the 
richer  by  the  expectation  of  playing  at  a  new  game,  you 
choose  to  make  yourselves  unhappier  than  when  you  had 
nothing  to  look  forward  to,  but  the  old  ones. 

Isabel.  But  then,  to  have  to  wait — wait — wait ;  and  be 
fore  we've  tried  it; — and  perhaps  it  will  rain  to-morrow,  too  J 


70  THE    CRYSTAL    ORDERS. 

L.  It  may  also  rain  the  day  after  to-morrow.  We  can 
make  ourselves  uncomfortable  to  any  extent  with  perhapses. 
Isabel.  You  may  stick  perhapses  into  your  little  minds,  like 
pins,  till  you  are  as  uncomfortable  as  the  Lilliputians  made 
Gulliver  with  their  arrows,  when  he  would  not  lie  quiet. 

Isabel.  But  what  are  we  to  do  to-day  ? 

L.  To  be  quiet,  for  one  thing,  like  Gulliver  when  he  saw 
there  was  nothing  better  to  be  done.  And  to  practise  pa- 
tience. I  can  tell  you  children,  that  requires  nearly  as  much 
practising  as  music ;  and  we  are  continually  losing  our  lessons 
when  the  master  comes.  Now,  to-day,  here's  a  nice  little 
adagio  lesson  for  us,  if  we  play  it  properly. 

Isabel.  But  I  don't  like  that  sort  of  lesson.  I  can't  play  it 
properly. 

L.  Can  you  play  a  Mozart  sonata  yet,  Isabel  ?  The  more 
need  to  practise.  All  one's  life  is  a  music,  if  one  touches  the 
notes  rightly,  and  in  time.     But  there  must  be  no  hurry. 

Kathleen.  I'm  sure  there's  no  music  in  stopping  in  on  a 
rainy  day. 

L.  There's  no  music  in  a  'rest,'  Katie,  that  I  know  of:  but 
there's  the  making  of  music  in  it.  And  people  are  always 
missing  that  part  of  the  life-melody ;  and  scrambling  on  with- 
out counting — not  that  it's  easy  to  count;  but  nothing  on 
which  so  much  depends  ever  is  easy.  People  are  always 
talking  of  perseverance,   and  courage,  and  fortitude;  but 


THE   CRYSTAL   ORDERS.  71 

patience  is  the  finest  and  worthiest  part  of  fortitude, — aud 
the  rarest,  too.  I  know  twenty  persevering  girls  for  one 
patient  one :  but  it  is  only  that  twenty-first  who  can  do  her 
work,  out  and  out,  or  enjoy  it.  For  patience  lies  at  the  root 
of  all  pleasures,  ag  well  as  of  all  powers.  Hope  herself  ceases 
to  be  happiness,  when  Impatience  companions  her. 

(Isabel  and  Lily  sit  down  on  the  floor,  and  fold  their 
hands.     The  others  follow  their  example.) 

Good  children !  but  that's  not  quite  the  way  of  it,  neither. 
Folded  hands  are  not  necessarily  resigned  ones.  The  Pa- 
tience who  really  smiles  at  grief  usually  stands,  or  walks,  or 
even  runs :  she  seldom  sits  ;  though  she  may  sometimes  have 
to  do  it,  for  many  a  day,  poor  thing,  by  monuments;  or  like 
Chaucer's,  '  with  face  pale,  upon  a  hill  of  sand.'  But  we  are 
not  reduced  to  that  to-day.  Suppose  we  use  this  calamitous 
forenoon  to  choose  the  shapes  we  are  to  crystallise  into  ?  we 
know  nothing  about  them  yet. 

(TJie  pictures  of  resignation  rise  from  the  floor,  not  in 
the  patientest  manner.     General  applause.) 

Mary  (with  one  or  two  others).  The  very  thing  we  wanted 
to  ask" you  about! 

Lily.  We  looked  at  the  books  about  crystals,  but  they  are 
bo  dreadful. 

L.  Well,  Lily,  we  must  go  through  a  little  dreadfulness, 
that's  a  fact:   no  road  to   any  good   knowledge   is  wholly 


72  THE  CRYSTAL   ORDERS. 

among  the  lilies  and  the  grass ;  there  is  rough  climbing  to  be 
done  always.  But  the  crystal-books  are  a  little  too  dreadful, 
most  of  them,  I  admit ;  and  we  shall  have  to  be  content  with 
very  little  of  their  help.  You  know,  as  you  cannot  stand  on 
each  other's  heads,  you  can  only  make  yourselves  into  the 
sections  of  crystals, — the  figures  they  show  when  they  are 
cut  through;  and  we  will  choose  some  that  will  be  quite 
easy.     You  shall  make  diamonds  of  yourselves 

Isabel.  Oh,  no,  no !  we  won't  be  diamonds,  please. 

L.  Yes,  you  shall,  Isabel ;  they  are  very  pretty  things,  if 
the  jewellers,  and  the  kings  and  queens,  would  only  let  thera 
alone.  You  shall  make  diamonds  of  yourselves,  and  rubies 
of  yourselves,  and  emeralds ;  and  Irish  diamonds ;  two  of 
those — with  Lily  in  the  middle  of  one,  which  will  be  vei'y 
orderly,  of  course ;  and  Kathleen  in  the  middle  of  the  other, 
for  which  we  will  hope  the  best ; — and  you  shall  make  Derby- 
shire spar  of  yourselves,  and  Iceland  spar,  and  gold,  aud 
silver,  and — Quicksilver  there's  enough  of  in  you,  without 
any  making. 

Mary.  Now,  you  know,  the  children  will  be  getting  quite 
wild :  we  must  really  get  pencils  and  paper,  and  begin  pro* 
perly. 

L.  "Wait  a  minute,  Miss  Mary ;  I  think  as  we've  the  school 
room  clear  to-day,  I'll  try  to  give  you  some  notion  of  the 
three  great  orders  or  ranks  of  crystals,  into  which  all  the 


THE  CRYSTAL   ORDERS.  73 

others  seem  more  or  less  to  fall.  We  shall  only  want  one 
figure  a  day,  in  the  playground ;  and  that  can  be  drawn  in  a 
minute :  hut  the  general  ideas  had  better  be  fastened  first.  1 
must  show  you  a  great  many  minerals  ;  so  let  me  have  three 
tables  wheeled  into  the  three  windows,  that  we  may  keep  our 
specimens  separate  ; — we  will  keep  the  three  orders  of  cry 
tals  on  separate  tables. 

(First  Interlude,  of  pushing  and  pidling,  and  spread* 
in9  °f  baize  covers.  Violet,  not  particularly  mind- 
ing what  she  is  about,  gets  herself  jammed  into  a 
corner,  and  bid  to  stand  out  of  the  way  ;  on  which 
she  devotes  herself  to  meditation.) 
Violet  (after  interval  of  meditation).  How  strange  it  ia 
that  everything  seems  to  divide  into  threes ! 

L.    Everything  doesn't   divide   into   threes.      Ivy  won't, 
though  shamrock  will ;  and  daisies  won't,  though  lilies  will. 

Violet.   But   all  the  nicest  things  seem   to  divide   into 
threes. 
L.  Violets  won't. 

Violet.  Nc  ;  I  should  think  not,  indeed  !     But  I  mean  the 
great  things. 

L.  I've  always  heard  the  globe  had  four  quarters. 
Isabel.  Well ;  but  you  know  you  said  it  hadn't  any  quar- 
ters at  all.     So  mayn't  it  really  be  divided  into  three? 

L.  If  it  were  divided  into  no  more  than  three,  on  the  out 

4 


74  THE   CRYSTAL   ORDERS. 

side  of  it,  Isabel,  it  would  be  a  fine  world  to  live  in ;  and  if  it 
were  divided  into  three  in  the  inside  of  it,  it  would  soon  be 
no  world  to  live  in  at  all. 

Dora.  We  shall  never  get  to  the  crystals,  at  this  rate. 
(Aside  to  Mary.)  lie  will  get  off  into  political  economy 
before  we  know  where  we  are.  (Aloud.)  But  the  crystals 
are  divided  into  three,  then  ? 

L.  No ;  but  there  are  three  general  notions  by  which  we 
may  best  get  hold  of  them.  Then  between  these  notions 
there  are  other  notions. 

Lily  (alarmed).  A  great  many  ?  And  shall  we  have  to 
learn  them  all  ? 

L.  More  than  a  great  many — a  quite  infinite  many.  _  So 
you  cannot  learn  them  all. 

Lily  (greatly  relieved).  Then  may  we  only  learn  the 
three  ? 

L.  Certainly;  unless,  when  you  have  got  those  three 
notions,  you  want  to  havo>  some  more  notions ; — which 
would  not  surprise  me.  But  we'll  try  for  the  three,  first. 
Katie,  you  broke  your  coral  necklace  this  morning  ? 

Kathleen.  Oh !  who  told  you  ?  It  was  in  jumping.  I'm 
bo  sorry! 

L.  I'm  very  glad.     Can  you  fetch  me  the  beads  of  it  ? 

Kathleen.  I've  lost  some  ;  here  are  the  rest  in  my  pocket, 
if  I  can  only  get  them  out. 


THE  CRYSTAL   ORDERS.  75 

L.  Ton  mean  to  get  them  out  some  day,  I  suppose ;  so 
try  now.     I  want  them. 

(Kathleen-  empties  her  pocket  on  the  floor.  The  beadi 
disperse.  The  School  disperses  also.  Second  Inter- 
lude— hunting  piece.) 

L.  (after  waiting  patiently  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  to 
Isabel,  who  comes  up  from  under  the  table  with  her  hav. 
all  about  her  ears,  and  the  last  findable  beads  in  her  hand.) 
Mice  are  useful  little  things  sometimes.  Now,  mousie,  I 
want  all  those  beads  crystallised.  How  many  ways  are  there 
of  putting  them  in  order  ? 

Isabel.  Well,  first  one  would  string  them,  I  suppose  ? 

L.  Yes,  that's  the  first  way.  You  cannot  string  ultimate 
atoms;  but  you  can  put  them  in  a  row,  and  then  they 
fasten  themselves  together,  somehow,  into  a  long  rod  or 
needle.  We  will  call  these  '  iVeec^e-crystals.'  What  would 
be  the  next  way  ? 

Isabel.  I  suppose,  as  we  are  to  get  together  in  the  play- 
ground, when  it  stops  raining,  in  different  shapes  ? 

L.  Yes ;  put  the  beads  together,  then,  in  the  simplest 
form  you  can,  to  begin  with.  Put  them  into  a  square,  and 
pack  tli  em  close. 

Isabel  (after  careful  endeavour).  I  can't  get  them  closer. 

L.  That  will  do.  Now  you  may  see,  beforehand,  that 
if  you  try  to  throw  yourselves  into  square  in  this  confu^d 


76  THE   CEYSTAL   ORDEES. 

way,  you  will  never  know  your  places;  so  you  had  better 
consider  every  square  as   made   of  rods,  put   side  by  sida 
Take  four  beads  of  equal  size,  first,  Isabel ;  put  them   into 
a   little   square.     That,  you  may    consider  as   made   up   of 
two  rods  of  two  beads  each.     Then  you  can  make  a  square 
a  size  larger,  out  of  three  rods  of  three.     Then  the   next 
square  may  be  a  size  larger.     How  many  rods,  Lily  ? 
Lilt.  Foxtr  rods  of  four  beads  each,  I  suppose. 
L.  Yes,  and  then  five  rods  of  five,  and  so  on.     But  now, 
look  here ;  make  another  square  of  four  beads  again.     You 
Bee  they  leave  a  little  opening  in  the  centre. 

Isabel  {pushing  two  opposite  ones  closer  together).  Now 
they  don't. 

L.  No ;  but  now  it  isn't  a  square ;  and  by  pushing  the  two 
together  you  have  pushed  the  two  others  farther  apart. 

Isabel.  And  yet,  somehow,  they  all  seem  closer  than  they 
were ! 

L.  Yes ;  for  before,  each  of  them  only  touched  two  of  the 
others,  but  now  each  of  the  two  in  the  middle  touches  the 
other  three.  Take  away  one  of  the  outsiders,  Isabel :  now 
you  have  three  in  a  triangle — the  smallest  triangle  you  can 
make  out  of  the  beads.  Now  put  a  rod  of  three  beads  on  at 
one  side.  So,  you  have  a  triangle  of  six  beads  ;  but  just  the 
shape  of  the  first  one.  Next  a  rod  of  four  on  the  side  of 
that;  and  you  have  a  triangle  of  ten  beads:  then  a  rod  of 


THE   CRYSTAL   ORDERS.  77 

five  on  the  side  of  that;  and  you  have  a  triangle  of  fifteen. 
Thus  you  have  a  square  with  five  heads  on  the  side,  and  a 
triangle  with  five  beads  on  the  side ;  equal-sided,  therefore, 
like  the  square.  So,  however  few  or  many  you  may  be,  yon 
may  soon  learn  how  to  crystallise  quickly  into  these  two 
figures,  which  are  the  foundation  of  form  in  the  commonest, 
and  therefore  actually  the  most  important,  as  well  as  in  the 
rarest,  and  therefore,  by  our  esteem,  the  most  important, 
minerals  of  the  world.     Look  at  this  in  my  hand. 

Violet.  Why,  it  is  leaf  gold ! 

L.  Yes ;  but  beaten  by  no  man's  hammer ;  or  rather,  not 
beaten  at  all,  but  woven.  Besides,  feel  the  weight  of  it. 
There  is  gold  enough  there  to  gild  the  walls  and  ceiling,  if  it 
were  beaten  thin. 

Violet.  How  beautiful !  And  it  glitters  like  a  leaf  covered 
with  frost. 

L.  You  only  think  it  so  beautiful  because  you  know  it  is 
gold.  It  is  not  prettier,  in  reality,  than  a  bit  of  brass :  for  it 
is  Transylvanian  gold ;  and  they  say  there  is  a  foolish  gnome 
in  the  mines  there,  who  is  always  wanting  to  live  in  the 
moon,  and  so  alloys  all  the  gold  with  a  little  silver.  I  don't 
know  how  that  may  be:  but  the  silver  alv/ays  is  in  the  gold  ; 
and  if  he  does  it,  it's  very  provoking  of  him,  for  no  gold  is 
woven  so  fine  anywhere  else. 

Mary    (who  Jias  been  looking  through  her  magnifying 


78  THE   CRYSTAL   ORDERS. 

glass).    But  this  is  not  woven.    This  is  all  made  of  little  tn 
angles. 

L.  Say  'patched,'  then,  if  you  must  be  so  particular.  But 
if  you  fancy  all  those  triangles,  small  as  they  are  (and  many 
of  them  are  infinitely  small),  made  up  again  of  rods,  and 
those  of  grains,  as  we  built  our  great  triangle  of  the  beads, 
what  word  will  you  take  for  the  manufacture  ? 

May.  There's  no  word — it  is  beyond  words. 

L.  Yes ;  and  that  would  matter  little,  were  it  not  beyond 
thoughts  too.  But,  at  all  events,  this  yellow  leaf  of  dead  gold, 
shed,  not  from  the  ruined  woodlands,  but  the  ruined  rocks, 
will  help  you  to  remember  the  second  kind  of  crystals,  Leaf 
crystals,  or  Foliated  crystals  ;  though  I  show  you  the  form  in 
gold  first  only  to  make  a  strong  impression  on  you,  for  gold 
is  not  generally,  or  characteristically,  crystallised  in  leaves ; 
the  real  type  of  foliated  crystals  is  this  thing,  Mica ;  which  if 
you  once  feel  well,  and  break  well,  you  will  always  know 
again  ;  and  you  will  often  have  ocoasion  to  know  it,  for  you 
will  find  it  everywhere,  nearly,  in  hill  countries. 

Kathleen.  If  we  break  it  well !     May  we  break  it  ? 

L.  To  powder,  if  you  like . 

{Surrenders  plate  of  brown  mica  to  public  investigation 
Third  Interlude.  It  sustains  severely  philosophical 
treatment  at  all  hands.) 

Florrie  (to  whom  the  last  fragments  have  descended} 


THE   CRYSTAL    ORDERS.  79 

Always  leaves,  and  leaves,  and  nothing  but  leaves,  or  white 
dust ! 

L.  That  dust  itself  is  nothing  but  finer  leaves. 

(Shoics  them  to  Florrie  through  magnifying  glass.) 

Isabel  (peeping  over  Florrie's  shoulder).  But  then  thia 
bit  under  the  glass  looks  like  that  bit  out  of  the  glass  !  If  we 
could  break  this  bit  under  the  glass,  what  would  it  be  like  ? 

L.  It  would  be  all  leaves  still. 

Isabel.  And  then  if  we  broke  those  again  ? 

L.  All  less  leaves  still. 

Isabel  {impatient).  And  if  we  broke  them  again,  and 
again,  and  again,  and  again,  and  again? 

L.  Well,  I  suppose  you  would  come  to  a  limit,  if  you  could 
only  see  it.  Notice  that  the  little  flakes  already  differ  some- 
what from  the  large  ones :  because  I  can  bend  them  up  and 
down,  and  they  stay  bent;  while  the  large  flake,  though  it 
bent  easily  a  little  way,  sprang  back  when  you  let  it  go,  and 
broke,  when  you  tried  to  bend  it  far.  And  a  large  mass 
would  not  bend  at  all. 

Mary.  Would  that  leaf  gold  separate  into  finer  leaves,  in 
the  same  way  ? 

L.  No;  and  therefore,  as  I  told  you,  it  is  not  a  characteris- 
tic specimen  of  a  foliated  crystallisation.  The  little  triangles 
are  portions  of  solid  crystals,  and  so  they  are  in  this,  which 
looks  like  a  black  mica ;  but  you  see  it  is  made  up  of  triangles 


80  THE   CRYSTAL   ORDERS. 

like  the  gold,  and  stands,  almost  accurately,  as  an  intermediate 
link,  in  crystals,  between  mica  and  gold.  Yet  this  is  the 
commonest,  as  gold  the  rarest,  of  metals. 

Mary.  Is  it  iron  ?     I  never  saw  iron  so  bright. 

L.  It  is  rust  of  iron,  finely  crystallised:  from  its   reseni 
blance  to  mica,  it  is  often  called  micaceous  iron. 

Kathleen.  May  we  break  this,  too  ? 

L,  !No,  for  I  could  not  easily  get  such  another  crystal; 
besides,  it  would  not  break  like  the  mica ;  it  is  much  harder. 
But  take  the  glass  again,  and  look  at  the  fineness  of  the  jag- 
ged edges  of  the  triangles  where  they  lap  over  each  other. 
The  gold  has  the  same :  but  you  see  them  better  here,  ter- 
race above  terrace,  countless,  and  in  successive  angles,  like 
superb  fortified  bastions. 

May.  But  all  foliated  crystals  are  not  made  of  triangles  ? 

L.  Far  from  it;  mica  is  occasionally  so,  but  usually  of 
hexagons;  and  here  is  a  foliated  crystal  made  of  squares, 
which  will  show  you  that  the  leaves  of  the  rock-land  havo 
their  summer  green,  as  well  as  their  autumnal  gold. 

Florrie.  Oh !  oh  !  oh !  [jumps  for  joy). 

L.  Did  you  never  see  a  bit  of  green  leaf  before,  Florrie  ? 

Florrie.  Yes,  but  never  so  bright  as  that,  and  not  in  a 
Btone. 

L.  If  you  will  look  at  the  leaves  of  the  trees  in  sunshine 
after  a  shower,  you  will  find  they  are  much  brighter  than 


THE   CRYSTAL   ORDERS.  81 

that ;  and  surely  they  are  none  the  worse  for  being  on  stalks 
instead  of  in  stones  ? 

Florrie.  Yes,  but  then  there  are  so  many  of  them,  one 
Dever  looks,  I  suppose. 

L.  Now  you  have  it,  Florrie. 

Violet  {sighing).  There  are  so  many  beautiful  things  we 
never  see! 

L.  You  need  not  sigli  for  that,  Violet ;  but  I  will  tell  you 
what  we  should  all  sigh  for, — that  there  are  so  many  ugly 
things  we  never  see. 

Violet.  But  we  don't  want  to  see  ugly  things ! 

L.  You  had  better  say,  '  We  don't  want  to  suffer  them.' 
You  ought  to  be  glad  in  thinking  how  much  more  beauty 
God  has  made,  than  human  eyes  can  ever  see  ;  but  not  glad 
in  thinking  how  much  more  evil  man  has  made,  than  his  own 
soul  can  ever  conceive,  much  more  than  his  hands  can  ever 
heal. 

Violet.  I  don't  understand; — how  is  that  like  the  leaves? 

L.  The  same  law  holds  in  our  neglect  of  multiplied  pain, 

as  in  our  neglect  of  multiplied  beauty.    Florrie  jumps  for  joy 

at  sight  of  half  an  inch  of  a  green  leaf  in  a  brown  stone 

and  takes  more  notice  of  it  than  of  all  the  green  in  the  wood. 

and  you,  or  I,  or  any  of  us,  would  be  unhappy  if  any  single 

human  creature  beside  us  were  in  sharp  pain ;  but  we  can 

read,  at  breakfast,  day  alter  day,  of  men  being  killed,  and  of 

?.* 


82  THE   CBTSTAL   ORDERS. 

women  and  children  dying  of  hunger,  faster  than  the  leaves 
Btrew  the  brooks  in  Vallombrosa ; — and  then  go  out  *,o  play 
croquet,  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

Mat.  But  we  do  not  see  the  people  being  killed  or  dying. 

L.  You  did  not  see  your  brother,  when  you  got  the  tele- 
gram the  other  day,  saying  he  was  ill,  May;  but  you  cried  for 
him;  and  played  no  croquet.  But  we  cannot  talk  of  these 
things  now;  and  what  is  more,  you  must  let  me  talk  straight 
on,  for  a  little  while ;  and  ask  no  questions  till  I've  done  :  for 
we  branch  ('  exfoliate,'  I  should  say,  mineralogically)  always 
into  something  else, — though  that's  my  fault  more  than 
yours;  but  I  must  go  straight  on  now.  You  have  got  a 
distinct  notion,  I  hope,  of  leaf-crystals;  and  you  see  the  sort 
of  look  they  have:  you  can  easily  remember  that  'folium'  is 
Latin  for  a  leaf,  and  that  the  separate  flakes  of  mica,  or  any 
other  such  stones,  are  called  '  folia ; '  but,  because  mica  is  the 
most  characteristic  of  these  stones,  other  things  that  are  like 
it  in  structure  are  called  '  micas ;'  thus  we  have  Uran-mica, 
which  is  the  green  leaf  I  showed  you;  and  Copper-mica, 
which  is  another  like  it,  made  chiefly  of  copper;  and  this 
foliated  iron  is  called  '  micaceous  iron.'  You  have  then  these 
two  great  orders,  Xeedle-crystals,  made  (probably)  of  grains 
in  rows ;  and  Leaf-crystals,  made  (probably)  of  needles  inter- 
woven; now,  lastly,  there  are  crystals  of  a  third  order,  iu 
Qeaps,  or  knots,  or  masses,  which  may  be  made  either  o/ 


THE   CRYSTAL    ORDERS.  83 

[eaves  laid  one  upon  another,  or  of  needles  bound  like  Roman 
fasces ;  and  mica  itself,  when  it  is  well  crystallised,  puts  itseli 
into  such  masses,  as  if  to  show  us  how  others  are  made. 
Ileie  is  a  brown  six-sided  crystal,  quite  as  beautifully  chi« 
selled  at  the  sides  as  any  castle  tower;  but  you  see  it  is  entirely 
built  of  folia  of  mica,  one  laid  above  another,  which  break 
away  the  moment  I  touch  the  edge  with  my  knife.  Now, 
here  is  another  hexagonal  tower,  of  just  the  same  size  and 
colour,  which  I  want  you  to  compare  with  the  mica  carefully ; 
but  as  I  cannot  wait  for  you  to  do  it  just  now,  I  must  tell  you 
quickly  what  main  differences  to  look  for.  First,  you  will 
feel  it  is  far  heavier  than  the  mica.  Then,  though  its  surface 
looks  quite  micaceous  in  the  folia  of  it,  wnen  you  try  them 
with  the  knife,  you  will  find  you  cannot  break  them  away 

Kathleen.  May  I  try  ? 

L.  Yes,  you  mistrusting  Katie.  Here's  my  strong  knife 
for  you.  {Experimental  pause.  Kathleen  doing  her  best.) 
You'll  have  that  knife  shutting  on  your  finger  presently, 
Kate ;  and  I  don't  know  a  girl  who  would  like  less  to  have 
her  hand  tied  up  for  a  week. 

.  Kathleen  (who  also  does  not  like  to  be  beaten — giving  up 
the  Jcnife  despondently).    What  can  the  nasty  hard  thing  be? 

L.  It  is  nothing  but  indurated  clay,  Kate:  very  hard 
set  certainly,  yet  not  so  hard  as  it  might  be.  If  it  were 
thoroughly  well   crystallised,  you  would  see  none  of  those 


34  THE    CRYSTAL    ORDERS. 

micaceous  fractures ;  and  the  stone  would  bo  quite  red  ai.d 
clear,  all  through. 

Kathleen.  Oh,  cannot  you  show  us  one  ? 

L.  Egypt  can,  if  you  ask  her ;  she  has  a  beautiful  one  in 
the  clasp  of  her  favourite  bracelet. 

Kathleen-.  Why,  that's  a  ruby ! 

L.  Well,  so  is  that  thing  you've  been  scratching  at. 

Kathleen.  My  goodness! 

{Takes  up  the  stone  again,  very  delicately/  and  drops 
it.     General  consternation.) 

L.  Never  mind,  Katie ;  you  might  drop  it  from  the  top  of 
the  house,  and  do  it  no  harm.  But  though  you  really  are  a 
very  good  girl,  and  as  good-natured  as  anybody  can  possibly 
be,  remember,  you  have  your  faults,  like  other  people ;  and, 
if  I  were  you,  the  next  time  I  wanted  to  assert  anything 
energetically,  I  would  assert  it  by  '  my  badness,'  not  *  my 
goodness.' 

Kathleen.  Ah,  now,  it's  too  bad  of  you ! 

L.  Well,  then,  I'll  invoke,  on  occasion,  my  "■  too-Dadness.' 
But  you  may  as  well  pick  up  the  ruby,  now  you  have  drop- 
ped it ;  and  look  carefully  at  the  beautiful  hexagonal  linea 
which  gleam  on  its  surface ;  and  here  is  a  pretty  white  sap- 
phire (essentially  the  same  stone  as  the  ruby),  in  which  you 
will  see  the  same  lovely  structure,  like  the  threads  of  the 
finest   white   cobweb.     I   do   not  know  what  is   the   exact 


THE   CRYSTAL    OBDERS.  85 

method  of  a  ruby's  construction ;  but  you  see  by  these  lines, 
what  fine  construction  there  is,  even  in  this  hardest  of  stonea 
(after  the  diamond),  which  usually  appears  as  a  massive  lump 
or  knot.  There  is  therefore  no  real  mineralogical  distinction 
between  needle  crystals  and  knotted  crystals,  but,  practically, 
crystallised  masses  throw  themselves  into  one  of  the  three 
groups  we  have  been  examining  to-day ;  and  appear  either 
as  Needles,  as  Folia,  or  as  Knots ;  when  they  are  in  needles 
(or  fibres),  they  make  the  stones  or  rocks  formed  out  of 
them  '•fibrous  /'  when  they  are  in  folia,  they  make  them 
' foliated f  when  they  are  in  knots  (or  grains),  '-granu- 
lar: Fibrous  rocks  are  comparatively  rare,  in  mass ;  but 
fibrous  minerals  are  innumerable ;  and  it  is  often  a  question 
which  really  no  one  but  a  young  lady  could  possibly  settle, 
whether  one  should  call  the  fibres  composing  them  '  threads' 
or  '  needles.'  Here  is  amianthus,  for  instance,  which  is  quite 
as  fine  and  soft  as  any  cotton  thread  you  ever  sewed  with ; 
and  here  is  sulphide  of  bismuth,  with  sharper  points  and 
brighter  lustre  than  your  finest  needles  have  ;  and  fastened 
in  white  webs  of  quartz  more  delicate  than  your  finest  lace  ; 
and  here  is  sulphide  of  antimony,  which  looks  like  mere 
purple  wool,  but  it  is  all  of  purple  needle  crystals;  and  here 
is  red  oxide  of  copper  (you  must  not  breathe  on  it  as  you 
look,  or  you  may  Vow  some  of  the  films  of  it  off  the  stone), 
which  is  simply  a  woven  tissue  of  scarlet  silk.     However, 


86  THE   CRYSTAL   ORDERS. 

these  finer  thread  forms  are  comparatively  rare,  while  the 
bolder  and  needle-like  crystals  occur  constantly ;  so  that,  I 
believe,  'Needle-crystal'  is  the  best  -word  (the  grand  one  is, 
•Acicular  crystal,'  but  Sibyl  will  tell  you  it  is  all  the  same, 
only  less  easily  understood;  and  therefore  more  scientific). 
Then  the  Leaf-crystals,  as  I  said,  form  an  immense  mass  of 
foliated  rocks  ;  and  the  Granular  crystals,  which  are  of  many 
kinds,  form  essentially  granular,  or  granitic  and  porphyritic 
rocks  ;  and  it  is  always  a  point  of  more  interest  to  me  (and  I 
think  will  ultimately  be  to  you),  to  consider  the  causes  which 
force  a  given  mineral  to  take  any  one  of  these  three  general 
forms,  than  what  the  peculiar  geometrical  limitations  are, 
belonging  to  its  own  crystals.*     It  is  more  interesting  to  me, 
for  instance,  to  try  and  find  out  why  the  red  oxide  of  copper, 
usually  crystallising  in  cubes  or  octahedrons,  makes  itself 
exquisitely,  out  of  its  cubes,  into  this  red  silk  in  one  particu- 
lar Cornish  mine,  than  what  are  the  absolutely  necessary 
angles  of  the  octahedron,  which  is  its  common  form.     At  all 
events,  that  mathematical  part  of  crystallography  is  quite 
beyond  girls'  strength  ;  but  these  questions  of  the  various 
tempers  and  manners  of  crystals  are  not  only  comprehensible 
by  you,  but  full  of  the  nnst  curious  teaching  for  you.      For 
in  the  fulfilment,  to  the  best  of  their  power,  of  their  adopted 
form  under  given  circumstances,  there  are  conditions  entirely 

*  Note  iv. 


THE    CRYSTAL    0EDEK8.  87 

resembling  those  of  human  virtue;  and  indeed  expressible 
under  no  term  so  proper  as  that  of  the  Virtue,  or  Courage 
of  crystals : — which,  if  you  are  not  afraid  of  the  crystals 
making  you  ashamed  of  yourselves,  we  will  try  to  get  some 
notion  of,  to-morrow.  But  it  will  be  a  bye-lecture,  and  more 
about  yourselves  than  the  minerals.  Don't  come  unless  you 
like. 

Maey.  I'm  sure  the  crystals  will  make  us  ashamed  of  our- 
selves ;  but  we'll  come,  for  all  that. 

L.  Meantime,  look  well  and  quietly  over  these  needle,  or 
thread  crystals,  and  those  on  the  other  two  tables,  with  mag- 
nifying glasses ;  and  see  what  thoughts  will  come  into  your 
little  heads  about  them.  For  the  best  thoughts  are  generally 
those  which  come  without  being  forced,  one  does  not  know 
how.  And  so  I  hope  you  will  get  through  your  wet  day 
patiently. 


Cectuve  5. 
VM  YSTAL    VIE  T  VMS 


LECTURE  V. 

CRYSTAL  VIRTUES. 

A  quiet  talk,  in  the  afternoon,  by  the  sunniest  window  of  the 
Drawing-room.  Present,  Florrie,  Isabel,  May,  Luchxa, 
Kathleen,  Dora^  Mary,  and  some  others,  who  have  saved 
time  for  the  bye-Lecture. 

L.  So  you  have  really  come,  like  good  girls,  to  be  made 
ashamed  of  yourselves  ? 

Dora  (very  meekly).  No,  we  needn't  be  made  so;  we 
always  are. 

L.  Well,  I  believe  that's  truer  than  most  pretty  speeches  : 
but  you  know,  you  saucy  girl,  some  people  have  more  reason 
to  be  so  than  others.  Are  you  sure  everybody  is,  as  well  aa 
ym? 

The  General  Voice.  Yes,  yes ;  everybody. 

L.  What!  Florrie  ashamed  of  herself? 
(Florrie  hides  behind  the  curtain.) 

L.  And  Isabel  ? 

(Isabel  hides  under  the  table.) 

L.  And  May? 

(May  runs  into  the  corner  behind  the  piano.) 


92  CRYSTAL  VIRTUES. 

L.  And  Lucilla? 

(Lucilla  hides  her  face  in  her  hands.) 

L.  Dear,  dear ;  but  this  will  never  do.  I  shall  have  to  tell 
you  of  the  faults  of  the  crystals,  instead  of  virtues,  to  put  yon 
in  heart  again. 

May  {coming  out  of  her  corner).  Oh !  have  the  crystals 
faults,  like  us  ? 

L.  Certainly,  May.  Their  best  virtues  are  shown  in  fight- 
ing their  faults.  And  some  have  a  great  many  faults ;  and 
some  are  very  naughty  crystals  indeed. 

Florrie  {from  behind  her  curtain).  As  naughty  as  me? 

Isabel  {peeping  from  under  the  table  cloth).  Or  me  ? 

L.  Well,  I  don't  know.  They  never  forget  their  syntax, 
children,  when  once  they've  been  taught  it.  But  I  think 
some  of  them  are,  on  the  whole,  worse  than  any  of  you. 
Not  that  it's  amiable  of  you  to  look  so  radiant,  all  in  a 
minute,  on  that  account. 

Dora.  Oh !  but  it's  so  much  more  comfortable. 

(Everybody  seems  to  recover  their  spirits.    Eclipse  of 
Florrie  and  Isabel  terminates.) 

L.  What  kindly  creatures  girls  are,  after  all,  to  their 
neighbours'  failings!  I  think  you  maybe  ashamed  of  ycur 
selves  indeed,  now,  children !  I  can  tell  you,  you  shall 
hear  of  the  highest  crystalline  merits  that  I  can  think  of, 
to-day:  and  I  wish  there  were  more  oi  them;  but  crystals 


CRYSTAL   VIRTUES.  93 

have  a  limited,  though  a  stern,  code  of  morals;  and  their 
essential  virtues  are  but  two ; — the  first  is  to  be  pure,  and 
the  second  to  be  well  shaped. 

Mart.  Pure  !     Does  that  mean  clear — transparent  ? 

L.  No;  unless  in  the  case  of  a  transparent  substance. 
You  cannot  have  a  transparent  crystal  of  gold ;  but  you 
may  have  a  perfectly  pure  one. 

Isabel.  But  you  said  it  was  the  shape  that  made  things 
be  crystals ;  therefore,  oughtn't  their  shape  to  be  their  first 
virtue,  not  their  second  ? 

L.  Right,  you  troublesome  mousie.  But  I  call  their  shape 
only  their  second  virtue,  because  it  depends  on  time  and 
accident,  and  things  which  the  crystal  cannot  help.  If  it  is 
cooled  too  quickly,  or  shaken,  it  must  take  what  shape  it  can  ; 
but  it  seems  as  if,  even  then,  it  had  in  itself  the  power  of 
rejecting  impurity,  if  it  has  crystalline  life  enough.  Here 
is  a  crystal  of  quartz,  well  enough  shaped  in  its  way ;  but 
it  seems  to  have  been  languid  and  sick  at  heart ;  and  some 
white  milky  substance  has  got  into  it,  and  mixed  itself  up 
with  it,  all  through.  It  makes  the  quartz  quite  yellow,  if 
you  hold  it  up  to  the  light,  and  milky  blue  on  the  surface. 
Here  is  another,  broken  into  a  thousand  separate  facets, 
and  out  of  all  traceable  shape;  but  as  pure  as  a  mountain 
spring.  I  like  this  one  best. 
The  Audience.    So  do  I — and  I — and  L 


94  CRYSTAL  VIRTUES. 

Mart.  "Would  a  crystallographer  ? 

L.  I  think  so.  He  would  find  many  more  laws  curiously 
exemplified  in  the  irregularly  grouped  but  pure  crystal. 
But  it  is  a  futile  question,  this  of  first  or  second.  Purity 
is  in  most  cases  a  prior,  if  not  a  nobler,  virtue ;  at  all 
events  it  is  most  convenient  to  think  about  it  first. 

Mary.  But  what  ought  we  to  think  about  it  ?  Is  there 
much  to  be  thought — I  mean,  much  to  puzzle  one  ? 

L.  I  don't  know  what  you  call  '  much.'  It  is  a  long 
time  since  I  met  with  anything  in  which  there  was  little. 
There's  not  much  in  this,  perhaps.  The  crystal  must  be 
either  dirty  or  clean, — and  there's  an  end.  So  it  is  with 
one's  hands,  and  with  one's  heart — only  you  can  wash  your 
hands  without  changing  them,  but  not  hearts,  nor  crystals. 
On  the  whole,  while  you  are  young,  it  will  be  as  well  to 
take  care  that  your  hearts  don't  want  much  washing ;  for 
they  may  perhaps  need  wringing  also,  when  they  do. 

(Audience  doubtful  and  uncomfortable.    Lucilla  at  last 
takes  courage.) 

Lucilla.  Oh  1  but  surely,  sir,  we  cannot  make  our  hearts 
clean  ? 

L.  Not  easily,  Lucilla ;  so  you  had  better  keep  them  so, 
when  they  are. 

Lucilla.  When  they  are !     But,  sir— — 

L,  Well? 


CRYSTAL   VIRTUES.  05 

Lucilla.  Sir — surely — are  we  not  told  that  thty  are  all 
evil? 

L.  Wait  a  little,  Lucilla ;  that  is  difficult  ground  you  are 
getting  upon ;  and  we  must  keep  to  our  crystals,  till  at 
least  we  understand  what  their  good  and  evil  consist  in ; 
they  may  help  us  afterwards  to  some  useful  hints  about 
our  own.  I  said  that  their  goodness  consisted  chiefly  in 
purity  of  substance,  and  perfect ness  of  form :  but  those  are 
rather  the  effects  of  their  goodness,  than  the  goodness 
itself.  The  inherent  virtues  of  the  crystals,  resulting  in 
these  outer  conditions,  might  really  seem  to  be  best 
described  in  the  words  we  should  use  respecting  living 
creatures — 'force  of  heart'  and  'steadiness  of  purpose.' 
There  seem  to  be  in  some  crystals,  from  the  beginning,  an 
unconquerable  purity  of  vital  power,  and  strength  of  crystal 
spirit.  "Whatever  dead  substance,  unaceeptant  of  this 
energy,  comes  in  their  way,  is  either  rejected,  or  forced  to 
take  some  beautiful  subordinate  form  ;  the  purity  of  the 
en  stal  remains  unsullied,  and  every  atom  of  it  bright  with 
coherent  energy.  Then  the  second  condition  is,  that  from 
the  beginning  of  its  whole  structure,  a  fine  crystal  seems 
tc  have  determined  that  it  will  be  of  a  certain  size  and  of 
a  certain  shape ;  it  persists  in  this  plan,  and  completes  it. 
Here  is  a  perfect  crystal  of  quartz  for  you.  It  is  of  an 
unusual    form,  and    one  which   it  might  seem  very  dvllicull 


96  CRYSTAL    VIRTUES. 

to  build — a  pyramid  with  convex  sides,  composed  of  otter 
i Minor  pyramids.  But  there  is  not  a  flaw  in  its  contour 
throughout;  not  one  of  its  myriads  of  component  sides  but 
is  as  bright  as  a  jeweller's  facetted  work  (and  far  finer,  if 
you  saw  it  close).  The  crystal  points  are  as  sharp  as  jave- 
lins; their  edges  will  cut  glass  with  a  touch.  Anything 
more  resolute,  consummate,  determinate  in  form,  cannot  be 
conceived.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  crystal  of  the 
same  substance,  in  a  perfectly  simple  type  of  form — a  plain 
six-sided  prism ;  but  from  its  base  to  its  point, — and  it  is 
nine  inches  long, — it  has  never  for  one  instant  made  up  its 
mind  what  thickness  it  will  have.  It  seems  to  have  begun 
by  making  itself  as  thick  as  it  thought  possible  with  the 
quantity  of  material  at  command.  Still  not  being  as  thick 
as  it  would  like  to  be,  it  has  clumsily  glued  on  more  sub- 
stance at  one  of  its  sides.  Then  it  has  thinned  itself,  in  a 
panic  of  economy  ;  then  puffed  itself  out  again ;  then 
starved  one  side  to  enlarge  another ;  then  warped  itself 
quite  out  of  its  first  line.  Opaque,  rough-surfaced,  jagged 
on  the  edge,  distorted  in  the  spine,  it  exhibits  a  quite 
human  image  of  decrepitude  and  dishonour ;  but  the  worst 
of  all  the  signs  of  its  decay  and  helplessness,  is  that  half 
way  up,  a  parasite  crystal,  smaller,  but  just  as  sickly,  hag 
rooted  itself  in  the  side  of  the  larger  one,  eating  out  a 
cavity   round    its    root,  and    then    growing    back w aids,  01 


JRYSTAL   VIRTUES.  97 

downwards,  contrary  to  the  direction  of  the  main  crystal 
Yet  I  cannot  trace  the  least  difference  in  purity  of  sul>- 
stance  between  the  first  most  noble  stone,  and  this  ignoble 
and  dissolute  one.  The  impurity  of  the  last  is  in  its  will, 
or  want  of  will. 

Mart.  Oh,  if  we  could  but  understand  the  meaning  of  it 
all! 

L.  We  can  understand  all  that  is  good  for  us.  It  is  just 
as  true  for  us,  as  for  the  crystal,  that  the  nobleness  of  life 
depends  on  its  consistency, — clearness  of  purpose, — quiet  and 
ceaseless  energy.  All  doubt,  and  repenting,  and  botching, 
and  retouching,  and  wondering  what  it  will  be  best  to  do 
next,  are  vice,  as  well  as  misery. 

Mary  {much  wondering).  But  must  not  one  repent  when 
one  does  wrong,  and  hesitate  when  one  can't  see  one's  way  ? 

L.  You  have  no  business  at  all  to  do  wrong ;  nor  to  get 
mto  any  way  that  you  cannot  see.  Your  intelligence  should 
always  be  far  in  advance  of  your  act.  Whenever  you  do  not 
know  what  you  are  about,  you  are  sure  to  be  doing  wrong. 

Kathleen.  Oh,  dear,  but  I  never  know  what  I  am  about ! 

L.  Very  true,  Katie,  but  it  is  a  great  deal  to  know,  if  you 
know  that.  And  you  find  that  you  have  done  wrong  after- 
wards ;  and  perhaps  some  day  you  may  begin  to  know,  or  at 
least,  think,  what  you  are  about. 

Isabel.  But  surely  people  can't  do  very  wrong  if  they  don'1 

5 


98  CRYSTAL   VIRTUES. 

know,  can  they  ?  I  mean,  they  can't  be  very  naughty.  They 
can  be  wrong,  like  Kathleen  or  me,  when  we  make  mistakes; 
but  not  wrong  in  the  dreadful  way.  I  can't  express  what  I 
mean ;  but  there  are  two  sorts  of  wrong,  are  there  not  ? 

L.  Yes,  Isabel;  but  you  will  find  that  the  great  difference 
is  between  kind  and  unkiud  wrongs,  not  between  meant  and 
unmeant  wrong.  Very  few  people  really  mean  to  do  wrong, 
— in  a  deep  sense,  none.  They  only  don't  know  what  they 
are  about.  Cain  did  not  mean  to  do  wrong  when  he  killed 
Abel. 

(Isabel  draws  a  deep  breath,  and  opens  her  eyes  very 
wide.) 

L.  No,  Isabel ;  and  there  are  countless  Cains  among  us 
now,  who  kill  their  brothers  by  the  score  a  day,  not  only  for 
less  provocation  than  Cain  had,  but  for  no  provocation, — and 
merely  for  what  they  can  make  of  their  bones, — yet  do  not 
think  they  are  doing  wrong  in  the  least.  Then  sometimes  you 
have  the  business  reversed,  as  over  in  America  these  last 
years,  where  you  have  seen  Abel  resolutely  killing  Cain,  and 
not  thinking  he  is  doing  wrong.  The  great  difficulty  is 
always  to  open  people's  eyes :  to  touch  their  feelings,  and 
break  their  hearts,  is  easy ;  the  difficult  thing  is  to  break  their 
heads.  What  does  it  matter,  as  long  as  they  remain  stupid, 
whether  you  change  their  feelings  or  not?  You  cannot  be 
always  at  their  elbow  to  tell  them  what  is  right :  and  they 


CRYSTAL   VIRTUES.  99 

may  just  do  as  wrong  as  before,  or  worse ;  and  their  best 
intentions  merely  make  the  road  smooth  for  them, — you  know 
where,  children.  For  it  is  not  the  place  itself  that  is  paved 
with  them,  as  people  say  so  often.  You  can't  pave  the  bot- 
tomless pit ;  but  you  may  the  road  to  it. 

May.  Well,  but  if  people  do  as  well  as  they  can  see  how, 
surely  that  is  the  right  for  them,  isn't  it  ? 

L.  ISTo,  May,  not  a  bit  of  it ;  right  is  right,  and  wrong  is 
wrong.  It  is  only  the  fool  who  does  wrong,  and  says  he 
'did  it  for  the  best.'  And  if  there's  one  sort  of  person  in  the 
world  that  the  Bible  speaks  harder  of  than  another,  it  is 
fools.  Their  particular  and  chief  way  of  saying  '  There  is  no 
God'  is  this,  of  declaring  that  whatever  their  'public  opinion' 
may  be,  is  right:  and  that  God's  opinion  is  of  no  conse- 
quence. 

May.  But  surely  nobody  can  always  know  what  is  right  ? 

L.  Yes,  you  always  can,  for  to-day ;  and  if  you  do  what 
you  see  of  it  to-day,  you  will  see  more  of  it,  and  more  clearly, 
to-morrow.  Here,  for  instance,  you  children  are  at  school, 
and  have  to  learn  French,  and  arithmetic,  and  music,  and 
several  other  such  things.  That  is  your  'right'  for  the  pre- 
sent ;  the  '  right '  for  us,  your  teachers,  is  to  see  that  you 
learn  as  much  as  you  can,  without  spoiling  your  dinner,  your 
sleep,  or  your  play;  and  that  what  you  do  learn,  you  learn 
well.     You  all  know  when  you  learn  with  a  will,  and  when 


I 

100  CRYSTAL   VIRTUES. 

you  dawdle.  There's  no  doubt  of  conscience  about  that,  J 
suppose  ? 

Violet  No;  but  if  one  wants  to  read  an  amusing  book, 
instead  of  learning  one's  lesson? 

L.  You  don't  call  that  a  '  question,'  seriously,  Violet  ?  You 
are  then  merely  deciding  whether  you  will  resolutely  do 
wrong  or  not. 

Mary.  But,  in  after  life,  how  many  fearful  difficulties  may 
arise,  however  one  tries  to  know  or  to  do  what  is  right ! 

L.  You  are  much  too  sensible  a  girl,  Mary,  to  have  felt 
that,  whatever  you  may  have  seen.  A  great  many  of  young 
ladies'  difficulties  arise  from  their  falling  in  love  with  a  wrong 
person :  but  they  have  no  business  to  let  themselves  fall  in 
love,  till 'they  know  he  is  the  right  one. 

Dora.  How  many  thousands  ought  he  to  have  a  year  ? 

L.  {disdaining  reply.)  There  are,  of  course,  certain  crises 
of  fortune  when  one  has  to  take  care  of  oneself,  and  mind 
shrewdly  what  one  is  about.  There  is  never  any  real  doubt 
about  the  path,  but  you  may  have  to  walk  very  slowly. 

Mary.  And  if  one  is  forced  to  do  a  wrong  thing  by  some 
one  who  has  authority  over  you  ? 

L.  My  dear,  no  one  can  be  forced  to  do  a  wrong  thing,  for 
the  guilt  is  in  the  will :  but  you  may  any  day  be  forced  to  do 
a  fatal  thing,  as  you  might  be  forced  to  take  poison;  the 
remarkable  law  of  nature  in  such   cases   being,   that  it  ia 


CRYSTAL    VIRTUES.  101 

always  unfortunate  you  who  are  poisoned,  and  not  the  person 
who  gives  you  the  dose.  It  is  a  very  strange  law,  but  it  is  a 
law.  Nature  merely  sees  to  the  carrying  out  of  the  normal 
operation  of  arsenic.  She  never  troubles  herself  to  ask  who 
gave  it  you.  So  also  you  may  be  starved  to  death,  morally 
as  well  as  physically,  by  other  people's  faults.  You  are,  on 
the  whole,  very  good  children  sitting  here  to-day ; — do  you 
think  that  your  goodness  comes  all  by  your  own  contriving  ? 
or  that  you  are  gentle  and  kind  because  your  dispositions  are 
naturally  more  angelic  than  those  of  the  poor  girls  who  are 
playing,  with  wild  eyes,  on  the  dustheaps  in  the  alleys  of  our 
great  towns ;  and  who  will  one  day  fill  their  prisons, — or, 
better,  their  graves?  Heaven  only  knows  where  they,  and 
we  who  have  cast  them  there,  shall  stand  at  last.  But  the 
main  judgment  question  will  be,  I  suppose,  for  all  of  us, 
'  Did  you  keep  a  good  heart  through  it  ? '  What  you  were, 
others  may  answer  for; — what  you  tried  to  be,  you  must 
answer  for,  yourself.  Was  the  heart  pure  and  true — tell  ua 
that  ? 

And  so  we  come  back  to  your  sorrowful  question,  Lucilla, 
which  I  put  aside  a  little  ago.  You  would  be  afraid  u 
answer  that  your  heart  was  pure  and  true,  would  not  you? 

Lucilla.  Yes,  indeed,  sir. 

L.  Because  you  have  been  taught  that  it  is  all  evil — '  only 
evil  continually.'     Somehow,  often  as  people  say  that,  thej 


102  CRYSTAL   VIRTUES. 

never  seem,  to  me,  to  believe  it  ?  Do  you  really  believe 
it? 

Lucilla.  Yes,  sir ;  I  hope  so. 

L.  That  you  have  an  entirely  bad  heart  ? 

Lucilla  (a  little  uncomfortable  at  the  substitution  of  the 
monosyllable  for  the  dissyllable,  nevertheless  persisting  in  liet 
orthodoxy).    Yes,  sir. 

L.  Florrie,  I  am  sure  you  are  tired ;  I  never  like  you  to 
stay  when  you  are  tired ;  but,  you  know,  you  must  not  play 
with  the  kitten  while  we're  talking. 

Floeeie.  Oh !  but  I'm  not  tired ;  and  I'm  only  nursing 
her.     She'll  be  asleep  in  my  lap,  directly. 

L.  Stop !  that  puts  me  in  mind  of  something  I  had  to  show 
you,  about  minerals  that  are  like  hair.  I  want  a  hair  out  of 
Tittie's  tail. 

Floeeie  {quite  rude,  in  her  swprise,  even  to  the  point 
of  repeating  expressions).     Out  of  Tittie's  tail! 

L.  Yes ;  a  brown  one :  Lucilla,  you  can  get  at  the  tip 
of  it  nicely,  under  Florrie's  arm;  just  pull  one  out  for 
me. 

Lucilla.  Oh !  but,  sir,  it  will  hurt  her  so  ! 

L.  Never  mind;  she  can't  scratch  you  while  Florrie  ia 
holding  her.  Xow  that  I  think  of  it,  you  had  better  pull 
out  two. 

Lucili.a    But  then  she  may  scratch   Florrie!    and  it  will 


CRYSTAL  VIRTUES.  103 

hurt  her  so,  sir !  if  you  only  want  brown  hairs,  wouldn't 
two  of  mine  do? 

L.  "Would  you  really  rather  pull  out  your  own  than 
Tittie's  ? 

Lucilla.  Oh,  of  course,  if  mine  will  do. 

L.  But  that's  very  wicked,  Lucilla ! 

Lucilla.  Wicked,  sir? 

L.  Yes;  if  your  heart  was  not  so  bad,  you  would  much 
rather  pull  all  the  cat's  hairs  out,  than  one  of  your  own. 

Lucilla,  Oh  !  but,  sir,  I  didn't  mean  bad,  like  that. 

L.  I  believe,  if  the  truth  were  told,  Lucilla,  you  would 
like  to  tie  a  kettle  to  Tittie's  tail,  and  hunt  her  round  the 
playground. 

Lucilla.  Indeed,  I  should  not,  sir. 

L.  That's  not  true,  Lucilla ;   you  know  it  cannot  be. 

Luctlla.  Sir? 

L.  Certainly  it  is  not ; — how  can  you  possibly  speak  any 
truth  out  of  such  a  heart  as  you  have?    It  is  wholly  deceitful. 

Lucilla.  Oh!  no,  no;  I  don't  mean  that  way;  I  don't 
mean  that  it  makes  me  tell  lies,  quite  out. 

L.  Only  that  it  tells  lies  within  you? 

Lucilla.  Yes. 

L.  Then,  outside  of  it,  you  know  what  is  true,  and  say 
so ;  and  I  may  trust  the  outside  of  your  heart ;  but  within. 
it  is  all  foul  and  false.     Is  that  the  way  ? 


104  CRYSTAL   VIRTUES. 

Lucilla.  I  suppose  so :  I  don't  understand  it,  quite. 

L.  There  is  no  occasion  for  understanding  it ;  but  do  yoa 
feel  it?  Are  you  sure  that  your  heart  is  deceitful  above 
all  things,  and  desperately  wicked  ? 

Lucilla  [much  relieved  by  finding  herself  among  phrase* 
with  which  she  is  acquainted).     Yes,  sir.     I'm  sure  of  that. 

L.  {pensively).  I'm  sorry  for  it,  Lucilla. 

Lucilla.  So  am  I,  indeed. 

L.  What  are  you  sorry  with,  Lucilla  ? 

Lucilla.  Sorry  with,  sir? 

L.  Yes ;  I  mean,  where  do  you  feel  sorry  ?  in  your 
feet? 

Lucilla  {laughing  a  little).  No,  sir,  of  coarse. 

L.  In  your  shoulders,  then  ? 

Lucilla.  No,  sir. 

L.  You  are  sure  of  that  ?  Because,  I  fear,  sorrow  in  the 
shoulders  would  not  be  worth  much. 

Lucilla.  I  suppose  I  feel  it  in  my  heart,  if  I  really  am 
Borry. 

L.  If  you  really  are !  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  arc 
aure  you  are  utterly  wicked,  and  yet  do  not  care  ? 

Lucilla.  No,  indeed ;  I  have  cried  about  it  often. 

L.  Well,  then,  you  are  sorry  in  your  heart  ? 

Lucilla.  Yes,,  when  the  sorrow  is  worth  anything. 

L.  Even  if  it  be  not,  it  cannot  be  anywhere  else  but  there 


CRYSTAL   VIRTUES.  105 

It  is  not  the  crystalline  lens  of  your  eyes  which  is  sorry, 
when  you  cry  ? 

Ltjcilla.  No,  sir,  of  course. 

L  Then,  have  you  two  hearts;  one  of  which  is  wicked, 
and  the  other  grieved?  or  is  one  side  of  it  sorry  for  the 
other  side  ? 

Lucilla  {weary  of  cross-examination,  and  a  little  vexed). 
Indeed,  sir,  you  know  I  can't  understand  it ;  but  you  know 
how  it  is  written — 'another  law  in  my  members,  warring 
against  the  law  of  my  mind.' 

L.  Yes,  Lucilla,  I  know  how  it  is  written;  but  I  do  not 
see  that  it  will  help  us  to  know  that,  if  we  neither  understand 
what  is  written,  nor  feel  it.  And  you  will  not  get  nearer  to 
the  meaning  of  one  verse,  if,  as  soon  as  you  are  puzzled  by 
it,  you  escape  to  another,  introducing  three  new  words — 
*law,'  'members,'  and  'mind';  not  one  of  which  you  at 
present  know  the  meaning  of;  and  respecting  which,  you 
probably  never  will  be  much  wiser;  since  men  like  Montes- 
quieu and  Locke  have  spent  great  part  of  then-  lives  in 
endeavouring  to  explain  two  of  them. 

Lucilla.  Oh  !  please,  sir,  ask  somebody  else. 

L.  If  I  thought  anyone  else  could  answer  better  than  you, 

Lucilla,   I  would:   but   suppose  I   try,   instead,   myself,   to 

explain  your  feelings  to  you  ? 

Lucilla.  Oh,  yes ;  please  do. 

5* 


106  CRYSTAL   VIRTUES. 

L.  Mind,  I  say  your  ' feelings,'  not  your  'belief.  For  1 
cannot  undertake  to  explain  anybody's  beliefs.  Still  I  must 
try  a  little,  first,  to  explain  the  belief  also,  because  I  want  to 
ilraw  it  to  some  issue.  As  far  as  I  understand  what  you  say, 
or  any  one  else,  taught  as  you  have  been  taught,  says,  on 
this  matter, — you  think  that  there  is  an  external  goodness,  a 
whited-sepulchre  kind  of  goodness,  which  appears  beautiful 
outwardly,  but  is  within  full  of  uncleanness :  a  deep  secret 
guilt,  of  which  we  ourselves  are  not  sensible ;  and  which  can 
only  be  seen  by  the  Maker  of  us  all.  (Approving  murmurs 
from,  audience!) 

L.  Is  it  not  so  with  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul  ? 
(Looked  notes  of  interrogation.) 

L.  A  skull,  for  instance,  is  not  a  beautiful  thing  ? 

(Grave  faces,  signifying  '  Certainly  not,''  and  *  What 
next  ?') 

L.  And  if  you  all  could  see  in  each  other,  with  clear  eyes, 
whatever  God  sees  beneath  those  fair  faces  of  yours,  you 
would  not  like  it? 

(Murmured '  AVs.') 

L.  Nor  would  it  be  good  for  you  ? 
(Silence.) 

L.  The  probability  being  that  what  God  does  not  allow 
you  to  see,  He  does  not  wish  you  to  see;  nor  even  tc 
think  of? 


CRYSTAL   VIRTUES.  107 

(Silence  prolonged.) 

L.  It  would  not  at  all  be  good  for  you,  for  instance, 
whenever  you  were  washing  your  faces,  and  braiding  youi 
hair,  to  be  thinking  of  the  shapes  of  the  jawbones,  and 
of  the  cartilage  of  the  nose,  and  of  the  jagged  sutures  of 
the  scalp  ? 

{Resolutely  whispered  iVb's.) 

L.  Still  less,  to  see  through  a  clear  glass   the   daily  pro- 
cesses of  nourishment  and  decay? 
{No.) 

L.  Still  less  if  instead  of  merely  inferior  and  preparatory 
conditions  of  structure,  as  in  the  skeleton, — or  inferior  offices 
of  structure,  as  in  operations  of  life  and  death,— there  were 
actual  disease  in  the  body ;  ghastly  and  dreadful.  You 
would  try  to  cure  it;  but  having  taken  such  measures  as 
were  necessary,  you  would  not  think  the  cure  likely  to  be 
promoted  by  perpetually  watching  the  wounds,  or  thinking 
of  them.  On  the  contrary,  you  would  be  thankful  for  every 
moment  of  forgetfulness :  as,  in  daily  health,  you  must  bo 
thankful  that  your  Maker  has  veiled  whatever  is  fearful  in 
your  frame  under  a  sweet  and  manifest  beauty ;  and  haa 
made  it  your  duty,  and  your  only  safety,  to  rejoice  in  that, 
both  in  yourself  and  in  others : — not  indeed  concealing,  or 
refusing  to  believe  in  sickness,  if  it  come;  but  never  dwelling 
on  it. 


108  CRYSTAL  VIRTUES. 

Now,  your  wisdom  and  duty  touching  soul-sickness  are 
just  the  same.  Ascertain  clearly  what  is  wrong  with  you ; 
and  so  far  as  you  know  any  means  of  mending  it,  take 
those  means,  and  have  done :  when  you  are  examining 
yourself,  never  call  yourself  merely  a  *  sinner,'  that  is  very 
cheap  abuse;  and  utterly  useless.  You  may  even  get  to 
like  it,  and  be  proud  of  it.  But  call  yourself  a  liar,  a 
coward,  a  sluggard,  a  glutton,  or  an  evil-eyed,  jealous 
wretch,  if  you  indeed  find  yourself  to  be  in  any  wise  any 
of  these.  Take  steady  means  to  check  yourself  in  what- 
ever fault  you  have  ascertained,  and  justly  accused  yourself 
of.  And  as  soon  as  you  are  in  active  way  of  mending,  you 
will  be  no  more  inclined  to  moan  over  an  undefined  cor- 
ruption. For  the  rest,  you  will  find  it  less  easy  to  uproot 
faults,  than  to  choke  them  by  gaining  virtues.  Do  not  think 
of  your  faults ;  still  less  of  others'  faults :  in  every  person 
who  comes  near  you,  look  for  what  is  good  and  strong : 
honour  that ;  rejoice  in  it ;  and,  as  you  can,  try  to  imitate 
it:  and  your  faults  will  drop  off,  like  dead  leaves,  when 
their  time  comes.  If,  on  looking  back,  your  whole  life 
should  seem  rugged  as  a  palm  tree  stem  ;  still,  never  mind, 
so  long  as  it  has  been  growing ;  and  has  its  grand  greec 
shade  of  leaves,  and  weight  of  honied  fruit,  at  top  And 
even  if  you  cannot  find  much  good  in  youi'self  at  last,  think 
that  it  does  not  much  matter  to  the   universe   either  what 


CRYSTAL   VIRTUES.  109 

you  were,  or  are;  think  how  many  people  are  nobk,  if 
you  cannot  be;  and  rejoice  in  their  nobleness.  An  immense 
quantity  of  modern  confession  of  sin,  even  when  honest,  ia 
merely  a  sickly  egotism ;  which  will  rather  gloat  over  its 
own  evil,  than  lose  the  centralisation  of  its  interest  in 
itself. 

Mart.  But  then,  if  we  ought  to  forget  ourselves  so  much, 
how  did  the  old  Greek  proverb  '  Know  thyself  come  to  be 
so  highly  esteemed  ? 

L,  My  dear,  it  is  the  proverb  of  proverbs ;  Apollo's  proverb, 
and  the  sun's ; — but  do  you  think  you  can  know  yourself  by 
looking  into  yourself?  Never.  You  can  know  what  you 
are,  only  by  looking  out  of  yourself.  Measure  your  own 
powers  with  those  of  others ;  compare  your  own  interests 
with  those  of  others ;  try  to  understand  what  you  appear  to 
them,  as  well  as  what  they  appear  to  you ;  and  judge  of 
yourselves,  in  all  things,  relatively  and  subordinately ;  not 
positively  :  starting  always  with  a  wholesome  conviction  of 
the  probability  that  there  is  nothing  particular  about  you. 
For  instance,  some  of  you  perhaps  think  you  can  write 
poetry.  Dwell  on  your  own  feelings  and  doings  : — and  von 
,vill  soon  think  yourselves  Tenth  Muses  ;  but  forget  your  own 
feelings  ;  and  try,  instead,  to  understand  a  line  or  two  of 
Chaucer  or  Dante :  and  you  will  soon  begin  to  feel  yourselvei 
very  foolish  girls—which  is  much  like  the  fact. 


110  CRYSTAL   VIRTUES. 

So,  something  which  befalls  you  may  seem  a  great  n.isfoi*. 
tune ; — you  meditate  over  its  effects  on  you  personally ;  and 
begin  to  think  that  it  is  a  chastisement,  or  a  warning,  or  a 
this  or  that  or  the  other  of  profound  significance ;  and  that 
all  the  angels  in  heaven  have  left  their  business  for  a  littlfi 
while,  that  they  may  watch  its  effects  on  your  mind.  But 
give  up  this  egotistic  indulgence  of  your  fancy;  examine  a 
little  what  misfortunes,  greater  a  thousandfold,  are  happening, 
every  second,  to  twenty  times  worthier  persons:  and  your 
self-consciousness  will  change  into  pity  and  humility ;  and 
you  will  know  yourself,  so  far  as  to  understand  that  '  there 
hath  nothing  taken  thee  but  what  is  common  to  man.' 

Now,  Lucilla,  these  are  the  practical  conclusions  which  any 
person  of  sense  would  arrive  at,  supposing  the  texts  which 
relate  to  the  inner  evil  of  the  heart  were  as  many,  and  as 
prominent,  as  they  are  often  supposed  to  be  by  careless  read- 
ers. But  the  way  in  which  common  people  read  their  Bibles 
is  just  like  the  way  that  the  old  monks  thought  hedgehogs 
ate  grapes.  They  rolled  themselves  (it  was  said),  over  and 
over,  where  the  grapes  lay  on  the  ground.  What  fruit  stuck 
to  their  spines,  they  carried  off,  and  ate.  So  your  hedgehoggj 
readers  roll  themselves  over  and  over  their  Bibles,  and  de- 
clare that  whatever  sticks  to  their  own  spines  is  Scripture , 
and  that  nothing  else  is.  But  you  can  only  get  the  skins  of 
the  texts  that  way.     If  you  want  their  juice,  yor   mu«t  pre«* 


CRYSTAL   VTETUES.  111 

them  in  cluster.  Now,  the  clustered  texts  about  the  human 
heart,  insist,  as  a  body,  not  on  any  inherent  corruption  in  all 
heai'ts,  but  on  the  terrific  distinction  between  the  bad  and 
the  good  ones.  'A  good  man,  out  of  the  good  treasure  of  hia 
heart,  bringeth  forth  that  which  is  good ;  and  an  evil  man, 
out  of  the  evil  treasure,  bringeth  forth  that  which  is  evil.' 

*  They  on  the  rock  are  they  which,  in  an  honest  and  good 
heart,  having  heard  the  word,  keep  it.'  '  Delight  thyself  hi 
the  Lord,  and  He  shall  give  thee  the  desires  of  thine  heart.' 

*  The  wicked  have  bent  their  bow,  that  they  may  privily 
shoot  at  him  that  is  upright  in  heart.'  And  so  on ;  they  are 
countless,  to  the  same  effect.  And,  for  all  of  us,  the  question 
is  not  at  all  to  ascertain  how  much  or  how  little  corruption 
there  is  in  human  nature ;  but  to  ascertain  whether,  out  of  all 
the  mass  of  that  nature,  we  are  of  the  shecj)  or  the  goat 
breed ;  whether  we  are  people  of  upright  heart,  being  shot 
at,  or  people  of  crooked  heart,  shooting.  And,  of  all  the 
texts  bearing  on  the  subject,  this,  which  is  a  quite  simple  and 
practical  order,  is  the  one  you  have  chiefly  to  hold  in  mind. 

*  Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence,  for  out  ot  it  are  the  issuer 
of  life.' 

Lucilla.  And  yet,  how  inconsistent  the  texts  seem! 

L.  Nonsense,  Lucilla!  do  you  think  the  universe  is  bound 
tc  look  consistent  to  a  girl  of  fifteen  ?  Look  up  at  your  own 
room  window ; — you  can  just  see  it  from  where  you  sit.     Vm 


112  CRYSTAL   VIRTUES. 

glad  that  it  is  left  open,  as  it  ought  to  be,  in  so  fine  a  day. 
But  do  you  see  what  a  black  spot  it  looks,  in  the  sun-lighted 
wall? 

Lucilla.  Yes,  it  looks  as  black  as  ink. 

L.  Yet  you  know  it  is  a  very  bright  room  when  you  are 
inside  of  it ;  quite  as  bright  as  there  is  any  occasion  for  it 
to  be,  that  its  little  lady  may  see  to  keep  it  tidy.  Well,  it  is 
very  probable,  also,  that  if  you  could  look  into  your  heart 
from  the  sun's  point  of  view,  it  might  appear  a  very  black 
hole  indeed:  nay,  the  sun  may  sometimes  think  good  to  tell 
you  that  it  looks  so  to  Him ;  but  He  will  come  into  it,  aud 
make  it  very  cheerful  for  you,  for  all  that,  if  you  don't  put 
the  shutters  up.  And  the  one  question  for  you,  remember, 
is  not  'dark  or  light?'  but  'tidy  or  untidy?'  Look  well  to 
your  sweeping  and  garnishing;  and  be  sure  it  is  only  the 
banished  spirit,  or  some  of  the  seven  wickeder  ones  at  his 
back,  who  will  still  whisper  to  you  that  it  is  all  black. 


Cecturc  6. 
CRYSTAL  QUARRELS. 


LECTURE  VI. 

CRYSTAL  QUARRELS. 

.Full  co?iclave,  in  Schoolroom.  There  has  been  a  game  a\ 
crystallisation  in  the  morning,  of  which  various  account 
has  to  be  rendered.  In  particular,  everybody  has  to  explain 
why  they  were  always  where  they  were  not  intended  to  be. 

L.  (having  received  and  considered  the  report.)  You  have 
got  on  pretty  well,  children :  but  you  know  these  were  easy 
figures  you  have  heen  trying.  Wait  till  I  have  drawn  you 
out  the  plans  of  some  crystals  of  snow ! 

Mauy.  I  don't  think  those  will  be  the  most  difficult : — 
they  are  so  beautiful  that  we  shall  remember  our  places  bet- 
ter ;  and  then  they  are  all  regular,  and  in  stars :  it  is  those 
twisty  oblique  ones  we  are  afraid  of. 

L.  Read  Carlyle's  account  of  the  battle  of  Leuthen,  and 
learn  Friedrich's  '  oblique  order.'  You  will  *  get  it  done 
for  once,  I  think,  provided  you  can  march  as  a  pair  of  com- 
passes would.'  But  remember,  when  you  can  construct  the 
most  difficult  single  figures,  you  have  only  learned  half  the 
game — nothing  so  much  as  the  half,  indeed,  as  the  crystals 
themselves  play  it. 


116  CRYSTAL    QUABREL8. 

Mary.  Indeed ;  what  else  is  there  ? 

L.  It  is  seldom  that  any  mineral  crystallises  alone.  Usually 
two  or  three,  under  quite  different  crystalline  laws,  form 
together.  They  do  this  absolutely  without  flaw  or  fault, 
A7hen  they  are  in  fine  temper:  and  observe  what  this  signifies. 
It  signifies  that  the  two,  or  more,  minerals  of  different 
natures  agree,  somehow,  between  themselves,  how  much 
space  each  will  want ; — agree  which  of  them  shall  give  way 
to  the  other  at  their  junction ;  or  in  what  measure  each  will 
accommodate  itself  to  the  other's  shape  !  And  then  each 
takes  its  permitted  shape,  and  allotted  share  of  space ;  yield- 
ing, or  being  yielded  to,  as  it  builds,  till  each  crystal  has 
fitted  itself  perfectly  and  gracefully  to  its  differently-natured 
neighbour.  So  that,  in  order  to  practise  this,  in  even  the 
simplest  terms,  you  must  divide  into  two  parties,  wearing 
different  colours ;  each  must  choose  a  different  figure  to  con- 
struct ;  and  you  must  form  one  of  these  figures  through  the 
other,  both  going  on  at  the  same  time. 

Mary.  I  think  we  may,  perhaps,  manage  it ;  but  I  cannot 
at  all  understand  how  the  crystals  do.  It  seems  to  imply  so 
much  preconcerting  of  plan,  and  so  much  giving  way  to  each 
Other,  as  if  they  really  were  living. 

L  Yes,  it  implies  both  concurrence  and  compromise, 
regulating  all  wilfulness  of  design :  and,  more  curious  still, 
the  crystals  do  not  always  give  way  to  each  other.     They 


CRYSTAL    QUARRELS.  11 1 

show  exactly  the  same  varieties  of  temper  that  human  crea 
tares  might.  Sometimes  they  yield  the  required  place  with 
perfect  grace  ar.d  courtesy ;  forming  fantastic,  but  exquisitely 
finished  groups :  and  sometimes  they  will  not  yield  at  all ; 
but  fight  furiously  for  their  places,  losing  all  shape  and  honour, 
and  even  their  own  likeness,  in  the  contest. 

Mary.  But  is  not  that  wholly  wonderful  ?  How  is  it  that 
one  never  sees  it  spoken  of  in  books  ? 

L.  The  scientific  men  are  all  busy  in  determining  the  con- 
stant laws  under  which  the  struggle  takes  place ;  these  inde- 
finite humours  of  the  elements  are  of  no  interest  to  them. 
And  unscientific  people  rarely  give  themselves  the  trouble  of 
thinking  at  all,  when  they  look  at  stones.  Not  that  it  is  of 
much  use  to  think ;  the  more  one  thinks,  the  more  one  is 
puzzled. 

Mary.  Surely  it  is  more  wonderful  than  anything  in 
botany  ? 

L.  Everything  has  its  own  wonders  ;  but,  given  the  nature 
of  the  plant.;  it  is  easier  to  understand  what  a  flower  will  do, 
and  why  it  does  it,  than,  given  anything  we  as  yet  know  of 
et one-nature,  to  understand  what  a  crystal  will  do,  and  why 
t  does  it.  You  at  once  admit  a  kind  of  volition  and  choice, 
in  the  flower ;  but  we  are  not  accustomed  to  attribute  anything 
of  the  kind  to  the  crystal.  Yet  there  is,  in  reality,  more  like- 
ness to  some  conditions  of  human  feeling  among  stones  thar 


118  CRYSTAL    QUARRELS. 

among  plants.  There  is  a  far  greater  difference  between 
kindly-tempered  and  ill-tempered  crystals  of  the  same  mine- 
ral, than  between  any  two  specimens  of  the  same  flower  :  and 
the  friendships  and  wars  of  crystals  depend  more  definitely 
and  curiously  on  their  varieties  of  disposition,  than  any  associa- 
tions of  flowers.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  good  garnet,  living 
with  good  mica ;  one  rich  red,  and  the  other  silver  white ; 
the  mica  leaves  exactly  room  enough  for  the  garnet  to  crystal- 
lise comfortably  in ;  and  the  garnet  lives  happily  in  its  little 
white  house ;  fitted  to  it,  like  a  pholas  in  its  cell.  But  here 
are  wicked  garnets  living  with  wicked  mica.  See  what  ruin 
they  make  of  each  other!  You  cannot  tell  which  is  which,1 
the  garnets  look  like  dull  red  stains  on  the  crumbling  stone. 
By  the  way,  I  never  could,  understand,  if  St.  Gothard  is  a 
real  saint,  why  he  can't  keep  his  garnets  in  better  order. 
These  are  all  under  his  care ;  but  I  suppose  there  are  too 
many  of  them  for  him  to  look  after.  The  streets  of  Airolo 
are  paved  with  them. 

May.  Paved  with  garnets  ? 

L.  With  mica-slate  and  garnets ;  I  broke  this  bit  out  of  a 
paving  stone.  Now  garnets  and  mica  are  natural  friends, 
and  generally  fond  of  each  other;  but  you  see  how  they 
quarrel  when  they  are  ill  brought  up.  So  it  is  always.  Good 
crystals  are  friendly  with  almost  all  other  good  crystals, 
however  little  they  chance  to  see  of  each  other,   or  how- 


CRYSTAL    QUARRELS.  119 

ever  opposite  their  habits  may  be;  while  wicked  crystals 
quarrel  with  one  another,  though  they  may  be  exactly  alike 
in  habits,  and  see  each  other  continually.  And  of  course  the 
flicked  crystals  quarrel  with  the  good  ones. 

Isabel.  Then  do  the  good  ones  get  angry  ? 

L.  No,  never :  they  attend  to  their  own  work  and  life ; 
and  live  it  as  well  as  they  can,  though  they  are  always  the 
sufferers.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  rock-crystal  of  the  purest 
race  and  finest  temper,  who  was  born,  unhappily  for  him, 
in  a  bad  neighbourhood,  near  Beaufort  in  Savoy;  and  he 
has  had  to  fight  with  vile  calcareous  mud  all  his  life.  See 
here,  when  he  was  but  a  child,  it  came  down  on  him,  and 
nearly  buried  him:  a  weaker  crystal  would  have  died  in 
despair;  but  he  only  gathered  himself  together,  like  Her- 
cules against  the  serpents,  and  threw  a  layer  of  crystal  over 
the  clay;  conquered  it, — imprisoned  it, — and  lived  on.  Then, 
when  he  was  a  little  older,  came  more  clay;  and  poured 
itself  upon  him  here,  at  the  side ;  and  he  has  laid  crystal 
over  that,  and  lived  on,  in  his  purity.  Then  the  clay  came 
on  at  his  angles,  and  tried  to  cover  them,  and  round  them 
away;  but  upon  that  he  threw  out  buttress-crystals  at  his 
angles,  all  as  true  to  his  own  central  line  as  chapels  round 
a  cathedral  apse;  and  clustered  them  round  the  clay;  and 
conquered  it  again.  At  last  the  clay  came  on  at  his  sum- 
mit,  and  tried    to   blunt  his    summit;    but   he   could    not 


120  CRYSTAL   QUARRELS. 

endure  that  for  an  instant ;  and  left  his  flanks  all  rough,  but 
pure ;  and  fought  the  clay  at  his  crest,  and  built  crest  ovei 
crest,  and  peak  over  peak,  till  the  clay  surrendered  at  last . 
and  here  is  his  summit,  smooth  and  pure,  terminating  a 
pyramid  of  alternate  clay  and  crystal,  half  a  foot  high! 

Lilt.  Oh,  how  nice  of  him !  What  a  dear,  brave  crystal ! 
But  I  can't  bear  to  see  his  flanks  all  broken,  and  the  clay 
within  them. 

L.  Yes ;  it  was  an  evil  chance  for  him,  the  being  born  to 
such  contention ;  there  are  some  enemies  so  base  that  even 
to  hold  them  captive  is  a  kind  of  dishonour.  But  look,  here 
has  been  quite  a  different  kind  of  struggle:  the  adverse 
power  has  been  more  orderly,  and  has  fought  the  puie  crys- 
tal in  ranks  as  firm  as  its  own.  This  is  not  mere  rage  and 
impediment  of  crowded  evil :  here  is  a  disciplined  hostility ; 
army  against  army. 

Lilt.  Oh,  but  this  is  much  more  beautiful ! 

L.  Yes,  for  both  the  elements  have  true  virtue  in  them ; 
it  is  a  pity  they  are  at  war,  but  they  war  grandly. 

Mary.  But  is  this  the  same  clay  as  in  the  other  crystal? 

L.  I  used  the  word  clay  for  shortness.  In  both,  the  enemy 
is  really  limestone ;  but  in  the  first,  disordered,  and  mixed 
with  true  clay;  while,  here,  it  is  nearly  pure,  and  crystallise!* 
into  its  own  primitive  form,  the  oblique  six-sided  one,  which 
you  know:  and  out  of  these  it  makes  regiments;  and  then 


CRYSTAL   QUARRELS.  121 

squares  of  the  regiments,  and  so  charges  the  rock  crystal 
literally  in  square  against  column. 

Isabel.  Please,  please,  let  me  see.  And  what  does  the 
lock  crystal  do  ? 

L.  The  rock  crystal  seems  able  to  do  nothing.  The  calcite 
cuts  it  through  at  every  charge.  Look  here, — and  here! 
The  loveliest  crystal  in  the  whole  group  is  hewn  fairly  into 
two  pieces. 

Isabel.  Oh,  dear ;  but  is  the  calcite  harder  than  the  crys- 
tal then  ? 

L.  No,  softer.     Very  much  softer. 

Mart.  But  then,  how  can  it  possibly  cut  the  crystal  ? 

L.  It  did  not  really  cut  it,  though  it  passes  through  it. 
The  two  were  formed  together,  as  I  told  you ;  but  no  one 
knows  how.  Still,  it  is  strange  that  this  hard  quartz  has  in 
all  cases  a  good-natured  way  with  it,  of  yielding  to  every- 
thing else.  All  sorts  of  soft  things  make  nests  for  themselves 
in  it;  and  it  never  makes  a  nest  for  itself  in  anything.  It 
has  all  the  rough  outside  work;  and  every  sort  of  cowardly 
and  weak  mineral  can  shelter  itself  within  it.  Look ;  these 
are  hexagonal  plates  of  mica ;  if  they  were  outside  of  this 
crystal  they  would  break,  like  burnt  paper;  but  they  are 
inside  of  it, — nothing  can  hurt  them, — the  crystal  h;;s  taken 
them  into  its  very  heart,  keeping  all  their  delicate  edges  aa 

sharp  as  if  they  were  under  water,  instead  of  bathed  in  rock 

6 


122  CRYSTAL    QUARRELS. 

Here  is  a  piece  of  branched  silver:  you  can  bend  it  with  a 
touch  of  your  finger,  but  the  stamp  of  its  every  fibre  is  on 
the  rock  in  which  it  lay,  as  if  the  quartz  had  been  as  soft  aa 
wool. 

Lily.  Oh,  the  good,  good  quartz !  But  does  it  never  get 
inside  of  anything  ? 

L.  As  it  is  a  little  Irish  girl  who  asks,  I  may  perhaps 
answer,  without  being  laughed  at,  that  it  gets  inside  of  itself 
sometimes.  But  I  don't  remember  seeing  quartz  make  a  nest 
for  itself  in  anything  else. 

Isabel.  Please,  there  was  something  I  heard  you  talking 
about,  last  term,  with  Miss  Mary.  I  was  at  my  lessons,  but 
I  heard  something  about  nests  ;  and  I  thought  it  was  birds' 
nests;  and  I  couldn't  help  listening;  and  then,  I  remem- 
ber, it  was  about 'nests  of  quartz  in  granite.'  I  remember, 
because  I  was  so  disappointed ! 

L.  Yes,  mousie,  you  remember  quite  rightly ;  but  I  can't 
tell  you  about  those  nests  to-day,  nor  perhaps  to-morrow: 
but  there's  no  contradiction  between  my  saying  then,  and 
now ;  I  will  show  you  that  there  is  not,  some  day.  Will  you 
trust  rhe  meanwhile  ? 

Isabel.  Won't  I ! 

L.  Well,  then,  look,  lastly,  at  this  piece  of  courtesy  in 
quartz ;  it  is  on  a  small  scale,  but  wonderfully  pretty.  Here 
is  nobly  born  quartz  living  with  a  green  mineral,  called  epi 


CRYSTAL    QTJA.ERELS.  122 

dote :  and  they  are  immense  friends.  Now,  you  see,  a  coin 
paratively  large  and  strong  quartz-crystal,  and  a  very  weak 
and  slender  little  one  of  epidote,  have  begun  to  grow,  close 
by  each  other,  and  sloping  unluckily  towards  each  other,  so 
that  at  last  they  meet.  They  cannot  go  on  growing  toge 
ther ;  the  quartz  crystal  is  five  times  as  thick,  and  more 
than  twenty  times  as  strong,*  as  the  epidote  ;  but  he  stops 
at  once,  just  in  the  very  crowning  moment  of  his  life,  when 
he  is  building  his  own  summit !  He  lets  the  pale  little  film 
of  epidote  grow  right  past  him ;  stopping  his  own  summit 
for  it ;  and  he  never  himself  grows  any  more. 

Lilt  {after  some  silence  of  wonder).  But  is  the  quartz 
never  wicked  then  ? 

L.  Yes,  but  the  wickedest  quartz  seems  good-natured, 
compared  to  other  things.  Here  are  two  very  characteristic 
examples ;  one  is  good  quartz,  living  with  good  pearlspar, 
and  the  other,  wicked  quartz,  living  with  wicked  pearlspar, 
In  both,  the  quartz  yields  to  the  soft  carbonate  of  iron :  but, 
in  the  first  place,  the  iron  takes  only  what  it  needs  of  room  ; 
and  is  inserted  into  the  planes  of  the  rock  crystal  with  such 
precision,  that  you  must  break  it  away  before  you  can  tell 
whether  it  really  penetrates  the  quartz  or  not ;  while  the 
crystals  of  iron  are  perfectly  formed,  and  have  a  lovely  bloom 

*  Quartz  is  not  much  harder  than  epidote;  the  strength  is  on'y  sup- 
posed  to  be  in  some  proportion  to  the  squares  of  the  diameters. 


24  CRYSTAL     QUAIIKELS. 

on  their  surface  besides.  But  here,  when  the  two  minerals 
quarrel,  the  unhappy  quartz  has  all  its  surfaces  jagged  and 
tern  to  pieces';  and  there  is  not  a  single  iron  crystal  whose 
shape  you  can  completely  trace.  But  the  quartz  has  the 
worst  of  it,  in  both  instances. 

Violet.  Might  we  look  at  that  piece  of  broken  quartz 
again,  with  the  weak  little  film  across  it?  it  seems  such  a 
strange  lovely  thing,  like  the  self-sacrifice  of  a  human  being. 

L.  The  self-sacrifice  of  a  human  being  is  not  a  lovely  thing, 
Violet.  It  is  often  a  necessary  and  noble  thing  ;  but  no  form 
Dor  degree  of  suicide  can  be  ever  lovely. 

Violet.  But  sebf-sacrifice  is  not  suicide ! 

L.  What  is  it  then  ? 

Violet.  Giving  up  one's  self  for  another. 

L.  "Well ;  and  what  do  you  mean  by  '  giving  up  one's 
self? ' 

Violet.  Giving  up  one's  tastes,  one's  feelings,  one's  time, 
one's  happiness,  and  so  on,  to  make  others  happy. 

L.  I  hope  you  will  never  marry  anybody,  Violet,  who 
expects  you  to  make  him  happy  in  that  way. 

Violet  (hesitating).  In  what  way? 

L.  By  giving  up  your  tastes,  and  sacrificing  your  feelings, 
and  happiness. 

Violet.  No,  no,  I  don't  mean  that;  but  you  know,  fof 
other  people,  one  must. 


CRYSTAL    QUARRELS.  125 

L.  For  people  who  don't  love  you,  and  whom  you  know 
nothing  about  ?  Be  it  so ;  but  how  does  this  '  giving  up' 
differ  from  suicide  then  ? 

Yiolet.  Why,  giving  up  one's  pleasures  is  not  killing  one's 
self? 

L.  Giving  up  wrong  pleasure  is  not;  neither  is  it  self 
sacrifice,  but  self-culture.  But  giving  up  right  pleasure  is. 
If  you  surrender  the  pleasure  of  walking,  your  foot  will 
wither ;  you  may  as  well  cut  it  off:  if  you  surrender  the 
pleasure  of  seeing,  your  eyes  will  soon  be  unable  to  bear  the 
light ;  you  may  as  well  pluck  them  out.  And  to  maim  your- 
self is  partly  to  kill  yourself.  Do  but  go  on  maiming,  and 
you  will  soon  slay. 

Violet.  But  why  do  you  make  me  think  of  that  verse 
then,  about  the  foot  and  the  eye  ? 

L.  You  are  indeed  commanded  to  cut  off  and  to  pluck  out, 
if  foot  or  eye  offend  you ;  but  why  should  they  offend  you  ? 

Yiolet.  I  don't  know;  I  never  quite  understood  that. 

L.  Yet  it  is  a  sharp  order  ;  one  needing  to  be  well  under- 
stood if  it  is  to  be  well  obeyed !  When  Helen  sprained  her 
ancle  the  other  day,  you  saw  how  strongly  it  had  to  be  baud 
aged;  that  is  to  say,  prevented  from  all  work,  to  recover  it. 
But  the  bandage  was  not '  lovely.' 

Violet.  No,  indeed. 

L.  And  if  her  foot  had  been  crushed,  or  diseased,  or  snake- 


126  CRYSTAL    QUARRELS. 

bitten,  instead  of  sprained,  it  might  have  been  needful  to  c  at 
it  off.     But  the  amputation  would  not  have  been  '  lovely.' 

Violet.   No. 

L.  Well,  if  eye  and  foot  are  dead  already,  and  betray  you 
— if  the  light  that  is  in  you  be  darkness,  and  your  feet  run 
into  mischief,  or  are  taken  in  the  snare, — it  is  indeed  time  to 
pluck  out,  and  cut  off,  I  think :  but,  so  crippled,  you  can 
never  be  what  you  might  have  been  otherwise.  You  entei 
into  life,  at  best,  halt  or  maimed;  and  the  sacrifice  is  not 
beautiful,  though  necessary. 

Violet  {after  a  pause).  But  when  one  sacrifices  one's 
self  for  others  ? 

L.  Why  not  rather  others  for  you  ? 

Violet.  Oh  !  but  I  couldn't  bear  that. 

L.  Then  why  should  they  bear  it  ? 

Dora  [bursting  in,  indignant).  And  Thermopylae,  and 
Protesilaus,  and  Marcus  Curtius,  and  Arnold  de  Winkelried, 
and  Iphigenia,  and  Jephthah's  daughter  ? 

L.  (sustaining  the  indignation  unmoved).  And  the 
Samaritan  woman's  son  ? 

Dora.  Which  Samaritan  woman's  ? 

L.  Read  2  Kings  vi.  29. 

Dora  (obeys).  How  horrid!  As  if  we  meant  anything 
like  that ! 

L.  You  don't  seem  to  me  to  know  in  the  least  what  you 


CRYSTAL   QUARRELS.  12  V 

do  mean,  children.  What  practical  difference  is  there 
between  'that,'  and  what  you  are  talking  about  ?  The 
Samaritan  children  had  no  voice  of  their  own  in  the  busi- 
ness, it  is  true ;  but  neither  had  Iphigenia :  the  Greek  girl 
was  certainly  neither  boiled,  nor  eaten ;  but  that  only 
makes  a  difference  in  the  dramatic  effect ;  not  in  the  prin- 
ciple. 

Dora  {biting  her  lip).  Well,  then,  tell  us  what  we  ought 
to  mean.  As  if  you  didn't  teach  it  all  to  us,  and  mean  it 
yourself,  at  this  moment,  more  than  we  do,  if  you  wouldn't 
be  tiresome  ! 

L.  I  mean,  and  always  have  meant,  simply  this,  Dora ; — 
that  the  will  of  God  respecting  us  is  that  we  shall  live  by 
each  other's  happiness,  and  life ;  not  by  each  other's  misery, 
or  death.  I  made  you  read  that  verse  which  so  shocked  you 
just  now,  because  the  relations  of  parent  and  child  are 
typical  of  all  beautiful  human  help.  A  child  may  have  to 
die  for  its  parents;  but  the  purpose  of  Heaven  is  that  it 
shall  rather  live  for  them ; — that,  not  by  its  sacrifice,  but  by 
its  strength,  its  joy,  its  force  of  being,  it  shall  be  to  them 
renewal  of  strength ;  and  as  the  arrow  in  the  hand  of  the 
giant.  So  it  is  in  all  other  right  relations.  Men  help  each 
other  by  their  joy,  not  by  their  sori-ow.  They  arc  not. 
intended  to  slay  themselves  for  each  other,  but  to  strengthen 
themselves  for  each  other.     And   among  the   many  appa 


128  CRYSTAL   QUARRELS. 

rently  beautiful  things  which  turn,  through  mistaken  use,  :o 
utter  evil,  I  aui  not  sure  but  that  the  thoughtlessly  meek  and 
self  sacrificing  spirit  of  good  men  must  be  named  as  one  of 
the  fatallest.  They  have  so  often  been  taught  that  there 
is  a  virtue  in  mere  suffering,  as  such ;  and  foolishly  to  hope 
that  good  may  be  brought  by  Heaven  out  of  all  on  which 
Heaven  itself  has  set  the  stamp  of  evil,  that  we  may  avoid 
it, — that  they  accept  pain  and  defeat  as  if  these  were  theif 
appointed  portion  ;  never  understanding  that  their  defeat  is 
not  the  less  to  be  mourned  because  it  is  more  fatal  to  their 
enemies  than  to  them.  The  one  thing  that  a  good  man  has 
to  do,  and  to  see  done,  is  justice ;  he  is  neither  to  slay 
himself  nor  others  causelessly :  so  far  from  denying  himself, 
since  he  is  pleased  by  good,  he  is  to  do  his  utmost  to  get  his 
pleasure  accomplished.  And  I  only  wish  there  were  strength, 
fidelity,  and  sense  enough,  among  the  good  Englishmen  of 
this  day,  to  render  it  possible  for  ihem  to  band  together  in 
a  vowed  brotherhood,  to  enforce,  by  strength  of  heart  and 
hand,  the  doing  of  human  justice  among  all  who  came 
within  their  sphere.  And  finally,  for  your  own  teaching, 
observe,  alth  >ugh  there  may  be  need  for  much  self-sacrifice 
and  self-denial  in  the  correction  of  faults  of  character,  the 
moment  the  character  is  formed,  the  self-denial  ceases. 
Nothing  is  really  well  done,  which  it  costs  you  pain  to 
do. 


CRYSTAL     QUARRELS.  129 

Violet.  But  surely,  sir,  you  are  always  pleased  with  us 
when  we  try  to  please  others,  and  not  ourselves  ? 

L.  My  dear  child,  in  the  daily  course  and  discipline  of  right 
life,  we  must  continually  and  reciprocally  submit  and  sur 
render  in  all  kind  and  courteous  and  affectionate  ways :  and 
these  submissions  and  ministries  to  each  other,  of  which  you 
all  know  (none  better)  the  practice  and  the  preciousness, 
are  as  good  for  the  yielder  as  the  receiver  :  they  strengthen 
and  perfect  as  much  as  they  soften  and  refine.  But  the  real 
sacrifice  of  all  our  strength,  or  life,  or  happiness  to  others 
(though  it  may  be  needed,  and  though  all  brave  creatures 
hold  their  lives  in  their  hand,  to  be  given,  when  such  need 
comes,  as  frankly  as  a  soldier  gives  his  life  in  battle),  is  yet 
always  a  mournful  and  momentary  necessity ;  not  the 
fulfilment  of  the  continuous  law  of  being.  Self-sacrifice 
which  is  sought  after,  and  triumphed  in,  is  usually  foolish ; 
and  calamitous  in  its  issue :  and  by  the  sentimental  procla- 
mation and  pursuit  of  it,  good  people  have  not  only  made 
most  of  their  own  lives  useless,  but  the  whole  framework 
of  their  religion  so  hollow,  that  at  this  moment,  while  tho 
English  nation,  with  its  lips,  pretends  to  teach  every  mar.  to 
'love  his  neighbour  as  himself,'  with  its  hands  and  feet  it 
clutches  and  tramples  like  a  wild  beast ;  and  practically  lives, 
every  soul  of  it  that  can,  on  other  people's  labour.     Briefly, 

tube  constant  duty  of  every  man  to  his  fellows  is  to  ascertain 

6* 


130  CRYSTAL    QUARKELS. 

his  own  powers  and  special  gifts ;  and  to  strengthen  them  foi 
the  help  of  others.  Do  you  think  Titian  would  have  helped 
the  world  better  by  denying  himself,  and  not  painting  ;  01 
'"•asella  by  denying  himself,  and  not  singing?  The  real 
drtue  is  to  be  ready  to  sing  the  moment  people  ask  us  ;  as 
he  was,  even  in  purgatory.  The  very  word  'virtue'  means 
not  'conduct'  but  'strength,'  vital  energy  in  the  heart. 
Were  not  you  reading  about  that  group  of  words  beginning 
with  V, — vital,  virtuous,  vigorous,  and  so  on, — in  Max 
Muller,  the  other  day,  Sibyl?  Can't  you  telL  the  others 
about  it  ? 

Sibyl.  No,  I  can't ;  will  you  tell  us,  please  ? 
L.  Not  now,  it  is  too  late.  Come  to  me  some  idle  time 
to-morrow,  and  I'll  tell  you  about  it,  if  all's  well.  But  the  gist 
of  it  is,  children,  that  you  should  at  least  know  two  Latin 
words;  recollect  that  'mors'  means  death  and  delaying;  and 
'vita'  means  life  and  growing  :  and  try  always,  not  to  mor- 
tify yourselves,  but  to  vivify  yourselves. 

Violet.  But,  then,  are  we  not  to  mortify  our  earthly 
affections  ?  and  surely  we  are  to  sacrifice  ourselves,  at  least 
in  God's  service,  if  not  in  man's? 

L.  Really,  Violet,  we  are  getting  too  serious.  I've  given 
you  enough  ethics  for  one  talk,  I  think !  Do  let  us  have  a 
little  play.  Lily,  what  were  you  so  busy  about,  at  the  ant- 
hill in  the  wood,  this  morning  ? 


CRYSTAL    QUARRELS.  131 

Lilv.  Oh,  it  was  the  ants  who  were  busy,  not  I;  I  was 
only  trying  to  help  them  a  little. 

L.  And  they  wouldn't  be  helped,  I  suppose  ? 

Lily.  No,  indeed.  I  can't  think  why  ants  are  always  so 
tiresome,  when  one  tries  to  help  them  !  They  were  carrying 
bits  of  stick,  as  fast  as  they  could,  through  a  piece  of  grass  ; 
and  pulling  and  pushing,  so  hard ;  and  tumbling  over  and 
over, — it  made  one  quite  pity  them ;  so  I  took  some  of  the 
bits  of  stick,  and  carried  them  forward  a  little,  where  I 
thought  they  wanted  to  put  them ;  but  instead  of  being 
pleased,  they  left  them  directly,  and  ran  about  looking  quite 
angry  and  frightened ;  and  at  last  ever  so  many  of  them  got 
up  my  sleeves,  and  bit  me  all  over,  and  I  had  to  come  away. 

L.  I  couldn't  think  what  you  were  about.  I  saw  your 
French  grammar  lying  on  the  grass  behind  you,  and  thought 
perhaps  you  had  gone  to  ask  the  ants  to  hear  you  a  French 
verb. 

Isabel.  Ah!  but  you  didn't,  though! 

L.  Why  not,  Isabel  ?  I  knew,  well  enough,  Lily  couldn't 
learn  that  verb  by  herself. 

Isabel.  No ;  but  the  ants  couldn't  help  her. 

L.  Are    you  sure   the   ants  could   not  have  helped  you, 

Lily? 

Lily  {thinking).  I  ought  to  have  learned  something  from 
them,  perhaps. 


132  CRYSTAL    QUABEELS. 

L.  But  none  of  them  left  their  sticks  to  help  you  through 
the  irregular  verb  ? 

Ljly.  No,  indeed.     {Laughing,  with  some  others.) 

L.  What  are  you  laughing  at,  children  ?  I  cannot  see  why 
the  ants  should  not  have  left  their  tasks  to  help  Lily  in  her's, 
— since  here  is  Violet  thinking  she  ought  to  leave  her  tasks, 
to  help  God  in  His.  Perhaps,  however,  she  takes  Lily's  more 
modest  view,  and  thinks  only  that  '  He  ought  to  learn  some- 
thing from  her.' 

( Tears  in  Violet's  eyes.) 

Doea  {scarlet).    It's  too  bad — it's  a  shame: — poor  Violet! 

L.  My  dear  children,  there's  no  reason  why  one  should  be 
so  red,  and  the  other  so  pale,  merely  because  you  are  made 
for  a  moment  to  feel  the  absurdity  of  a  phrase  which  you 
have  been  taught  to  use,  in  common  with  half  the  religious 
world.  There  is  but  one  Avay  in  which  man  can  ever  help 
God — that  is,  by  letting  God  help  him  :  and  there  is  no  way 
in  which  his  name  is  more  guiltily  taken  in  vain,  than  by  call- 
ing the  abandonment  of  our  own  work,  the  performance  of 
His. 

God  is  a  kind  Father.  He  sets  us  all  in  the  places  where 
lie  wishes  us  to  be  employed;  and  that  employment  is  truly 
'  our  Father's  business.'  He  chooses  work  for  every  crea- 
ture  which  will  be  delightful  to  them,  if  they  do  it  simply 
and  humbly.    He  gives  us  always  strength  enough,  and  sense 


CRYSTAL     QUARRELS.  133 

enough,  for  what  He  wants  us  to  do  ;  if  we  either  tire  our- 
selves or  puzzle  ourselves,  it  is  our  own  fault.  And  we  may 
always  be  sure,  whatever  we  are  doing,  that  we  cannot  he 
pleasing  Him,  if  we  are  not  happy  ourselves.  Now,  away 
with  you,  children  ;  and  be  as  happy  as  you  can.  And  when 
you  cannot,  at  least  don't  plume  yourselves  upon  pouting. 


Ccctuvc  7. 
HOME  VIRTUES. 


LECTURE  VH. 

HOME   VIRTUES. 
By  the  fireside,  in  the  Drawing-room.     Evening. 

Dora.  Now,  the  curtains  are  drawn,  and  the  fire's  bright, 
and  here's  your  armchair — and  you're  to  tell  us  all  about 
what  you  promised. 

L.  All  about  what  ? 

Dora.  All  about  virtue. 

Kathleen.  Yes,  and  about  the  words  that  begin  with  V. 

L.  I  heard  you  singing  about  a  word  that  begins  with  V, 
in  the  playground,  this  morning,  Miss  Katie. 

Kathleen.  Me  singing ! 

Mat.  Oh  tell  us — tell  us. 

L.  '  Vilikens  and  his ' 


Kathleen    {stopping  his    mouth).      Oh !     please    don't. 
Where  were  you  ? 

Isabel.  I'm  sure  I  wish  I  had  known  where  he  was  !     W 
lost  him  among  the  rhododendrons,  and  I  don't  know  where 
he  got  to ;  oh,  you  naughty — naughty— {climbs  on  his  knee) 

Dora.  Now,  Isabel,  we  really  want  to  talk. 


138  HOME   VIRTUES. 

L.  J  don't. 

Dora.  Ob,  but  you  must.    You  promised,  you  know. 

L.  Yes,  if  all  was  well ;  but  all's  ill.  I'm  tired,  and  ci  osft ; 
and  I  won't. 

Dora.  You're  not  a  bit  tired,  and  you're  not  crosser  tban 
two  sticks ;  and  we'll  make  you  talk,  if  you  were  crosser 
tban  six.  Come  bere,  Egypt ;  and  get  on  tbe  otber  side  of 
bim. 

(Egypt  takes  up  a  commanding  position  near  the  hearth 
brush.) 

Dora  {reviewing  her  forces).  Now,  Lily,  come  and  sit  on 
tbe  rug  in  front. 

(Lily  does  as  she  is  bid.) 

L.  {seeing  he  has  no  chance  against  the  odds.)  Well, 
well ;  but  I'm  really  tired.  Go  and  dance  a  little,  first ;  and 
let  me  tbink. 

Dora.  No;  you  mustn't  tbink.  You  will  be  wanting  to 
make  us  tbink  next ;  tbat  will  be  tiresome. 

L.  Well,  go  and  dance  first,  to  get  quit  of  tbinking :  and 
tben  I'll  talk  as  long  as  you  like. 

Dora.  Ob,  but  we  can't  dance  to-nigbt.  Tbere  isn't  time ; 
and  we  want  to  bear  about  virtue. 

L.  Let  me  see  a  little  of  it  first.  Dancing  is  tbe  first  of 
girls'  virtues. 

Egypt.  Indeed  !    And  tbe  second  ? 


HOME    VIRTUES.  139 

L.  Dressing. 

Egypt.  Now,  you  needn't  say  that!  I  mended  that  tear 
the  first  thing  before  breakfast  this  morning. 

L.  I  cannot  otherwise  express  the  ethical  principle,  Egypt ; 
whether  you  have  mended  your  gown  or  not. 

Dora.  Now  don't  be  tiresome.  We  really  must  hear 
about  virtue,  please ;  seriously. 

L.  "Well.     I'm  telling  you  about  it,  as  fast  as  I  can. 

Dora.  What!  the  first  of  girls'  virtues  is  dancing? 

L.  More  accurately,  it  is  wishing  to  dance,  and  not  wishing 
to  tease,  nor  hear  about  virtue. 

Dora  {to  Egypt).  Isn't  he  cross  ? 

Egypt.  How  many  balls  must  we  go  to  in  the  season,  to 
be  perfectly  virtuous  ? 

L.  As  many  as  you  can  without  losing  your  colour.  But 
I  did  not  say  you  should  wish  to  go  to  balls.  I  said  you 
should  be  always  wanting  to  dance. 

Egypt.  So  we  do ;  but  everybody  says  it  is  very  wrong. 

L.  Why,  Egypt,  I  thought— 

'  There  was  a  lady  once, 
That  would  not  be  a  queen, — that  would  she  not, 
For  all  the  mud  in  Egypt.' 

You  were  complaining  the  other  day  cf  having  to  go  out  a 
great  deal  oftener  than  you  liked. 


140  HOME    VIRTUES. 

Egypt.  Yes,  so  I  was;  but  then,  it  isn't  to  dance.  There's 
no  room  to  dance:  it's — {Pausing  to  consider  what  it  is 
for). 

L.  It  is  only  to  be  seen,  I  suppose.  Well,  there's  no  harm 
n  that.     Girls  ought  to  like  to  be  seen. 

Dora  {her  eyes  flashing).  Now,  you  don't  mean  that ; 
and  you're  too  provoking ;  and  we  won't  dance  again,  for  a 
month. 

L.  It  will  answer  every  purpose  of  revenge,  Dora,  if  you 
only  banish  me  to  the  library ;  and  dance  by  yourselves ;  but 
I  don't  think  Jessie  and  Lily  will  agree  to  that.  You  like  me 
to  see  you  dancing,  don't  you,  Lily  ? 

Lilt.  Yes,  certainly, — when  we  do  it  rightly. 

L.  And  besides,  Miss  Dora,  if  young  ladies  really  do  not 
want  to  be  seen,  they  should  take  care  not  to  let  their  eyes 
flash  when  they  dislike  what  people  say:  and,  more  than  that, 
it  is  all  nonsense  from  beginning  to  end,  about  not  wanting 
to  be  seen.  I  don't  know  any  more  tiresome  flower  in  the 
borders  than  your  especially  'modest'  snowdrop;  which  one 
always  has  to  stoop  down  and  take  all  sorts  of  tiresome 
trouble  with,  and  nearly  break  its  poor  little  head  off,  before 
you  can  see  it ;  and  then,  half  of  it  is  not  worth  seeing.  Girla 
should  be  like  daisies ;  nice  and  white,  with  an  edge  of  red, 
if  you  look  close  ;  making  the  ground  bright  wherever  they 
are;  knowing  simply  and  quietly  that  they  do  it,  and  arti 


HOME   VIRTUES.  141 

meant  to  do  it,  and  that  it  would  be  very  wrong  if  they 
didn't  do  it.  Not  want  to  be  seen,  indeed !  How  long  were 
you  in  doing  your  back  hair,  this  afternoon,  Jessie? 

(Jessie  not  immediately  answering,  Doha,  comes  to  her 
assistance.) 

Dora.  Not  above  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  I  think, 
Jess? 

Jessie  {putting  her  finger  up).  Now,  Dorothy,  you  needn't 
talk,  you  know ! 

L.  I  know  she  needn't,  Jessie  ;  I  shall  ask  her  about  those 
dark  plaits  presently.  (Dora  looks  round  to  see  if  there  is 
any  way  open  for  retreat.)  But  never  mind;  it  was  worth 
the  time,  whatever  it  was ;  and  nobody  will  ever  mistake 
that  golden  wreath  for  a  chignon :  but  if  you  don't  want  it 
to  be  seen,  you  had  better  wear  a  cap. 

Jessie.  Ah,  now,  are  you  really  going  to  do  nothing,  but 
play?  And  we  all  have  been  thinking,  and  thinking,  all 
day  ;  and  hoping  you  would  tell  us  things;  and  now — ! 

L.  And  now  I  am  telling  you  things,  and  true  things,  and 
things  good  for  you  ;  and  you  won't  believe  me.  You  might 
as  well  have  let  me  go  to  sleep  at  once,  as  I  wanted  to. 
(Endeavours  again  to  make  himself  comfortable.) 

Isabel.  Oh,  no,  no,  you  sha'n't  go  to  sleep,  you  naughty  1 
— Kathleen,  come  here. 

L.  {knowing  what  he  has  to  expect  if  Kathleen  comes.) 


142  nOME    VIRTUES. 

Get  away,  Isabel,  you're  too  heavy.  {Sitting  u}).)  "WW. 
have  I  boen  saying? 

Dora.  I  do  believe  he  has  been  asleep  all  the  time  !  You 
never  heard  anything  like  the  things  you've  been  saying. 

L.  Perhaps  not.  If  you  have  heard  them,  and  anything 
like  them,  it  is  all  I  want. 

Egypt.  Yes,  but  we  don't  understand,  and  you  know  we 
don't ;  and  we  want  to. 

L.  What  did  I  say  first  ? 

Dora.  That  the  first  virtue  of  girls  was  wanting  to  go  to 
balls. 

L.  I  said  nothing  of  the  kind. 

Jessie.  '  Always  wanting  to  dance,'  you  said. 

L.  Yes,  and  that's  true.  Their  first  virtue  is  to  be 
intensely  happy ; — so  happy  that  they  don't  know  what  to  do 
with  themselves  for  happiness, — and  dance,  instead  of  walk 
ing.    Don't  you  recollect  *  Louisa,' 

'  No  fountain  from  a  rocky  cave 
E'er  tripped  with  foot  so  free ; 
She  seemed  as  happy  as  a  wave 
That  dances  on  the  sea.' 

A  girl  is  always  like  that,  when  everything's  right  with  her. 
Violet.  But,  surely,  one  must  be  sad  sometimes  ? 
L.  Yes,  Violet ;  and  dull  sometimes,  and  stupid  sometimes, 


HOME     VIRTUES.  143 

and  cross  sometimes.  What  must  be,  must;  but  it  is  always 
either  our  own  fault,  or  somebody  else's.  The  last  and  worst 
thing  that  can  be  said  of  a  nation  is,  that  it  has  made  its 
young  girls  sad,  and  weary. 

Mat.  But  I  am  sure  I  have  heard  a  great  many  good 
people  speak  against  dancing  ? 

L.  Yes,  May;  but  it  does  not  follow  they  were  wise  aa 
well  as  good.  I  suppose  they  think  Jeremiah  liked  better  to 
have  to  write  Lamentations  for  his  people,  than  to  have  to 
write  that  piomise  for  them,  which  everybody  seems  to  hurry 
past,  that  they  may  get  on  quickly  to  the  verse  about  Rachel 
weeping  for  her  children ;  though  the  verse  they  pass  is  the 
counter  blessing  to  that  one  :  '  Then  shall  the  virgin  rejoice 
in  the  dance  ;  and  both  young  men  and  old  together ;  and  I 
will  turn  their  mourning  into  joy.' 

{The  children  (jet  very  serious,  but  look  at  each  other, 
.as  if  pleased.) 

Mary.  They  understand  now :  but,  do  you  know  what  you 
said  next  ? 

L.  Yes ;  I  was  not  more  than  half  asleep.  I  said  their 
second  virtue  was  dressing. 

Mary.  Well !  what  did  you  mean  by  that  ? 

L    What  do  you  mean  by  dressing  ? 

Mary.  Wearing  fine  clothes. 

L.  Ah !  there's  the  mistake.     I  mean  wearing  plain  ones, 


144  HOME    VIRTUES. 

Mary.  Yes,  I  daresay!  but  that's  not  what  girls  under 
stand  by  dressing,  you  know. 

L.  I  can't  help  that.  If  they  understand  by  dressing,  buy- 
ing  dresses,  perhaps  they  also  understand  by  drawing,  buying 
pictures.  But  when  I  hear  them  say  they  can  draw,  I  under- 
stand that  they  can  make  a  drawing ;  and  when  I  hear  them 
say  they  can  dress,  I  understand  that  they  can  make  a  dress 
and — which  is  quite  as  difficult — wear  one. 

Dora.  I'm  not  sure  about  the  making;  for  the  wearing, 
we  can  all  wear  them — out,  before  anybody  expects  it. 

Egypt  {aside,  to  ~L.,piteously).  Indeed  I  have  mended  that 
torn  flounce  quite  neatly;  look  if  I  haven't! 

L.  {aside,  to  Egypt).  All  right ;  don't  be  afraid.  {Aloud, 
to  Dora.)  Yes,  doubtless  ;  but  you  know  that  is  only  a  slow 
way  of  tmdressing. 

Dora.  Then,  we  are  all  to  learn  dress-making,  are  we  ? 

L.  Yes;  and  always  to  dress  yourselves  beautifully — not 
finely,  unless  on  occasion ;  but  then  very  finely  and  beauti- 
fully too.  Also,  you  are  to  dress  as  many  other  people  as 
you  can;  and  to  teach  them  how  to  dress,  if  they  don't  know; 
and  to  consider  every  ill-dressed  woman  or  child  whom  you 
see  anywhere,  as  a  personal  disgrace ;  and  to  get  at  them, 
somehow,  until  everybody  is  as  beautifully  dressed  as  birds 
{Silence  ;  the  children  drawing  their  breaths  hard,  as  ij 
they  had  come  from  under  a  shower  bath.) 


II OMB    VIRTUES.  145 

L.  (seeing  objections  begin  to  express  themselves  in  tlu 
eyes.)  Now  you  needn't  say  you  can't;  for  you  can  and 
it's  what  you  were  meant  to  do,  always ;  and  to  dress  your 
houses,  and  your  gardens,  too ;  and  to  do  very  little  else, 
I  believe,  except  singing  ;  and  dancing,  as  we  said,  of  course  , 
and — one  thing  more. 

Dora.  Our  third  and  last  virtue,  I  suppose  ? 

L.  Yes ;  on  Violet's  system  of  triplicities. 

Dora.  Well,  we  are  prepared  for  anything  now.  What 
is  it? 

L.  Cooking. 

Dora.  Cardinal,  indeed !  If  only  Beatrice  were  here  with 
her  seven  handmaids,  that  she  might  see  what  a  fine  eighth 
we  had  found  for  her ! 

Mart.  And  the  interpretation  ?  What  does  '  cooking ' 
mean  ? 

L.  It  means  the  knowledge  of  Medea,  and  of  Circe,  and 
of  Calypso,  and  of  Helen,  and  of  Rebekah,  and  of  the  Queen 
of  Sheba.  It  means  the  knowledge  of  all  herbs,  and  fruits, 
and  balms,  and  spices  ;  and  of  all  that  is  healing  and  sweet 
in  fields  and  groves,  and  savoury  in  meats ;  it  means  careful- 
fulness,  and  inventiveness,  and  watchfulness,  and  willingness, 
and  readiness  of  appliance  ;  it  means  the  economy  of  your 
great-grandmothers,  and  the  science  of  modern  chemists ;  it 

means   much   tasting,   and   no    wasting ;    it  means  English 

7 


146  HOME    VIRTUES. 

thoroughness,  and  French  art,  and  Arabian  hospitality;  aud 
it  means,  in  fine,  that  you  are  to  he  perfectly  and  always, 
'  ladies' — *  loaf-givers ;'  and,  as  you  are  to  see,  imperatively, 
that  everybody  has  something  pretty  to  put  on, — so  you  are 
to  see,  yet  more  imperatively,  that  everybody  has  something 
nice  to  eat. 

{Another  pause,  and  long  drawn  breath.) 

Dora  [slowly  recovering  herself )  to  Egypt.  We  had 
better  have  let  him  go  to  sleep,  I  think,  after  all ! 

L.  You  had  better  let  the  younger  ones  go  to  sleep  now : 
for  I  haven't  half  done. 

Isabel  [panic-struck).  Oh!  please,  please!  just  one 
quarter  of  an  hour. 

L.  No,  Isabel ;  I  cannot  say  what  I've  got  to  say,  in 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  ;  and  it  is  too  hard  for  you,  besides  : — 
you  would  be  lying  awake,  and  trying  to  make  it  out,  half 
the  night.    That  will  never  do. 

Isabel.  Oh,  please ! 

L.  It  would  please  me  exceedingly,  mousie :  but  there  are 
times  when  we  must  both  be  displeased;  more's  the  pity, 
Lily  may  stay  for  half  an  hour,  if  she  likes. 

Lily.  I  can't ,  because  Isey  never  goes  to  sleep,  if  she  is 
waiting  for  me  to  come. 

Isabel.  Oh,  yes,  Lily;  I'll  go  to  sleep  to-night,  I  wi'd, 
indeed. 


HOMB    VIRTUES.  14? 

Lily.  Yes,  it's  very  likely,  Isey,  with  those  fine  round 
eyes !  ( To  L.)  You'll  tell  me  something  of  what  you'  ve 
been  saying,  to-morrow,  won't  you  ? 

L.  "No,  I  won't,  Lily.  You  must  choose.  It  s  only  in  Miss 
Edgeworth's  novels  that  one  can  do  right,  and  have  one's 
cake  and  sugar  afterwards,  as  well  (not  that  I  consider  the 
dilemma,  to-night,  so  grave). 

(Lilt,  sighing,  takes  Isabel's  hand.) 

Yes,  Lily  dear,  it  will  he  better,  in  the  outcome  of  it,  so, 
than  if  you  were  to  hear  all  the  talks  that  ever  were  talked, 
and  all  the  stories  that  ever  were  told.     Good  night. 

{The  door  leading  to  the  condemned  cells  of  the  Dormi- 
tory closes  on  Lilt,  Isabel,  Floreie,  and  other  dimi- 
nutive and  submissive  victims) 

Jessie  {after  a  pause).  Why,  I  thought  you  were  so  fond 
of  Miss  Edgeworth ! 

L.  So  I  am ;  and  so  you  ought  all  to  be.  I  can  read  her 
over  and  over  again,  without  ever  tiring ;  there's  no  one 
whose  every  page  is  so  full,  and  so  delightful ;  no  one  who 
brings  you  into  the  company  of  pleasanter  or  wiser  people ; 
no  one  who  tells  you  more  truly  how  to  do  right.  And  it  is 
very  nice,  in  the  midst  of  a  wild  world,  to  have  the  very 
;deal  of  poetical  justice  done  always  to  one's  hand : — to  have 
everybody  found  out,  who  tells  lies ;  and  everybody  decorat- 
ed with  a  red  riband,  whe  doesn't;  and  to  see  the  good 


148  HOME    VIRTUES. 

Laura,  who  gave  away  ber  half  sovereign,  receiving  a  grand 
ovation  from  an  entire  dinner  party  disturbed  for  the  pur< 
pose  ;  and  poor,  dear,  little  Rosamond,  who  chooses  purple 
jars  instead  of  new  shoes,  left  at  last  without  either  her  shoes 
or  ber  bottle.  But  it  isn't  life:  and,  in  the  way  children 
might  easily  understand  it,  it  isn't  morals. 

Jessie.  How  do  you  mean  we  might  understand  it  ? 

L.  You  might  think  Miss  Edgeworth  meant  that  the  right 
was  to  be  done  mainly  because  one  was  always  rewarded  for 
doing  it.  It  is  an  injustice  to  her  to  say  that :  her  heroines 
always  do  right  simply  for  its  own  sake,  as  they  should;  and 
her  examples  of  conduct  and  motive  are  wholly  admirable. 
But  her  representation  of  events  is  false  and  misleading. 
Her  good  characters  never  are  brought  into  the  deadly  trial 
of  goodness, — the  doing  right,  and  suifering  for  it,  quite 
finally.  And  that  is  life,  as  God  arranges  it.  '  Taking  up 
one's  cross '  does  not  at  all  mean  having  ovations  at  dinner 
parties,  and  being  put  over  everybody  else's  head. 

Dora.  But  what  does  it  mean  then  ?  That  is  just  what 
we  couldn't  understand,  when  you  were  telling  us  about  not 
sacrificing  ourselves,  yesterday. 

L.  My  dear,  it  means  simply  that  you  ai  e  to  go  the  road 
which  you  see  to  be  the  straight  one ;  carrying  whatever  yon 
find  is  given  you  to  carry,  as  well  and  stoutly  as  you  can ; 
without  making  faces,  or  calling  people  to  come  and  look  a* 


HOME    VIRTUES.  149 

yon.  Above  all,  you  are  neither  to  load,  nor  unload,  your- 
self; nor  cut  your  cross  to  your  own  liking.  Some  people 
think  it  would  be  better  for  them  to  have  it  large ;  and  many, 
that  they  could  carry  it  much  faster  if  it  were  small ;  and  even 
those  who  like  it  largest  are  usually  very  particular  about 
ts  being  ornamental,  and  made  of  the  best  ebony.  But  all 
that  you  have  really  to  do  is  to  keep  your  back  as  straight  as 
you  can ;  and  not  think  about  what  is  upon  it — above  all,  not 
to  boast  of  what  is  upon  it.  The  real  and  essential  meaning 
of  '  virtue'  is  in  that  straightness  of  back.  Yes ;  you  may 
laugh,  children,  but  it  is.  You  know  I  was  to  tell  you  about 
the  words  that  began  with  V.  Sibyl,  what  does  '  virtue' 
mean,  literally  ? 

Sibyl.  Does  it  mean  courage  ? 

L.  Yes ;  but  a  particular  kind  of  courage.  It  means  cou 
rage  of  the  nerve ;  vital  courage.  That  first  syllable  of  it,  if 
you  look  in  Max  Muller,  you  will  find  really  means  'nerve,' 
and  from  it  come  '  vis,'  and  '  vir,'  and  '  virgin'  (through 
vireo),  and  the  connected  word  '  virga ' — '  a  rod  ;'— the  green 
rod,  or  springing  bough  of  a  tree,  being  the  type  of  perfect 
human  strength,  both  in  the  use  of  it  in  the  Mosaic  story 
when  it  becomes  a  serpent,  or  strikes  the  rock;  or  when 
Aaron's  bears  its  almonds;  and  in  the  metaphorical  expres- 
sions, the  'Rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse,'  and  the  'Man 
whose  name  is  the  Branch,'  and  so  on.     And  the  essentia1 


150  HOME    VIRTUES. 

idea  of  real  virtue  is  that  of  a  vital  h  iman  strength,  whieV- 
instinctively,  constantly,  and  without  motive,  does  what  is 
right.  You  must  train  men  to  this  by  habit,  as  you  would 
the  branch  of  a  tree ;  and  give  them  instincts  and  manners 
(or  morals)  of  purity,  justice,  kindness,  and  courage.  Once 
rightly  trained,  they  act  as  they  should,  irrespectively  of  all 
motive,  of  fear,  or  of  reward.  It  is  the  blackest  sign  of 
putrescence  in  a  national  religion,  when  men  speak  as  if  it 
were  the  only  safeguard  of  conduct;  and  assume  that,  but 
for  the  fear  of  being  burned,  or  for  the  hope  of  being  re- 
warded, everybody  would  pass  their  lives  in  lying,  stealing, 
and  murdering.  I  think  quite  one  of  the  notablest  historical 
events  of  this  century  (perhaps  the  very  notablest),  was  that 
council  of  clergymen,  horror-struck  at  the  idea  of  any  dimi- 
nution in  our  dread  of  hell,  at  which  the  last  of  English 
clergymen  whom  one  would  have  expected  to  see  in  such  a 
function,  rose  as  the  devil's  advocate ;  to  tell  us  how  impos- 
sible it  was  we  could  get  on  without  him. 

Violet  {after  a  pause).  But,    surely,    if  people  weren't 
afraid — (hesitates  again). 

L.  They  should  be  afraid  of  doing  wrong,  and  of  that  only, 

my  dear.     Otherwise,  if  they  only  don't  do  wrong  for  fear 

of  being   punished,  they  have  done  wrong  in  their  hearts, 

already* 

Violet.  Weli,  hut  surely,  at  least  one  ought  to  be  afraid 


HOME    VIRTUES.  151 

of  displeasing  God ;  and  one's  desire  to  please  Him  shoald 
be  one's  first  motive  ? 

L.  He  never  would  be  pleased  with  us,  if  it  were,  my  dear. 
When  a  father  sends  his  son  out  into  the  world — suppose  as 
an  apprentice — fancy  the  boy'is  coming  home  at  night,  and 
saying,  '  Father,  I  could  have  robbed  the  till  to-day ;  but  I 
didn't,  because  I  thought  you  wouldn't  like  it.'  Do  you 
think  the  father  would  be  particularly  pleased  ? 
(Violet  is  silent.) 

He  would  answer,  would  he  not,  if  he  were  wise  and  good, 
'  My  boy,  though  you  had  no  father,  you  must  not  rob  tills '  ? 
And  nothing  is  ever  done  so  as  really  to  please  our  Great 
Father,  unless  we  would  also  have  done  it,  though  we  had 
had  no  Father  to  know  of  it. 

Violet  (after  long  pause).  But,  then,  what  continual 
threatening^,  and  promises  of  reward  there  are  ! 

L.  And  how  vain  both!  with  the  Jews,  and  with  all  of  us. 
But  the  fact  is,  that  the  threat  and  promise  are  simply  state- 
ments of  the  Divine  law,  and  of  its  consequences.  The  fiict 
is  truly  told  you, — make  what  use  you  may  of  it :  and  as  col- 
lateral warning,  or  encouragement,  or  comfort,  the  know- 
ledge of  future  consequences  may  often  be  helpful  to  ns ;  but 
helpful  chiefly  to  the  better  state  when  we  can  act  without 
reference  to  them.  And  there's  nc  measuring  the  poisoned 
nfluence  of  that  notion  of  future  reward  on  the  mind  of 


152  HOME    VIRTUES. 

Christian  Europe,  in  the  early  ages.  Half  the  monastic  eys« 
tern  rose  out  of  that,  acting  on  the  occult  pride  and  ambition 
of  good  people  (as  the  other  half  of  it  came  of  their  folliea 
and  misfortunes).  There  is  always  a  considerable  quantity 
of  pride,  to  begin  with,  in  what  is  called  '  giving  one's  self 
to  God.'     As  if  one  had  ever  belonged  to  anybody  else  ! 

Dora.  But,  surely,  great  good  has  come  out  of  the  monas 
tic  system — our  books, — our  sciences — all  saved  by  the 
monks  ? 

L.  Saved  from  what,  my  dear  ?  From  the  abyss  of  misery 
and  ruin  which  that  false  Christianity  allowed  the  whole 
active  world  to  live  in.  When  it  had  become  the  principal 
amusement,  and  the  most  admired  art,  of  Christian  men,  to 
cut  one  another's  throats,  and  burn  one  another's  towns  ;  of 
course  the  few  feeble  or  reasonable  persons  left,  who  desired 
quiet,  safety,  and  kind  fellowship,  got  into  cloisters  ;  and  the 
gentlest,  thoughtfullest,  noblest  men  and  women  shut  them- 
selves up,  precisely  where  they  could  be  of  least  use.  They 
are  very  fine  things,  for  us  painters,  now, — the  towers  and 
white  arches  upon  the  tops  of  the  rocks ;  always  in  places 
where  it  takes  a  day's  climbing  to  get  at  them ;  but  the 
intense  tragi-comedy  of  the  thing,  when  one  thinks  of  it,  is 
unspeakable.  All  the  good  people  of  the  world  getting 
themselves  hung  up  out  of  the  way  of  mischief,  like  Bailie 
Nieol  Jarvie; — poor  little  lambs,  as  it  were,  dangling  there 


HOME    VIRTUES.  153 

for  the  sign  of  the  Golden  Fleece ;  or  like  Socrates  in  his 
basket  in  the  '  Clouds ' !  (I  must  read  you  that  bit  oi 
Aristophanes  again,  by  the  way.)  And  believe  me,  children, 
I  am  no  warped  witness,  as  far  as  regards  monasteries ;  or  if 
I  am,  it  is  in  their  favour.  I  have  always  had  a  strong  lean- 
ing that  way;  and  have  pensively  shivered  with  Augustines 
at  St.  Bernard ;  and  happily  made  hay  with  Franciscans  at 
Fesole ;  and  sat  silent  with  Carthusians  in  their  little  gardens, 
south  of  Florence  ;  and  mourned  through  many  a  day-dream, 
at  Melrose  and  Bolton.  But  the  wonder  is  always  to  me,  not 
how  much,  but  how  little,  the  monks  have,  on  the  whole, 
done,  with  all  that  leisure,  and  all  that  good-will !  What  non- 
sense monks  characteristically  wrote; — what  little  progress 
they  made  in  the  sciences  to  which  they  devoted  themselves 
as  a  duty, — medicine  especially ; — and,  last  and  worst,  what 
depths  of  degradation  they  can  sometimes  see  one  another, 
and  the  population  round  them,  sink  into;  without  either 
doubting  their  system,  or  reforming  it ! 

{Seeing  questions  rising  to  lips.)  Hold  your  little  tongues, 
children ;  it's  very  late,  and  you'll  make  me  forget  what  I've 
to  say.  Fancy  yourselves  in  pews,  for  five  minutes.  There's 
one  point  of  possible  good  in  the  conventual  system,  which  is 
always  attractive  to  young  girls ;  and  the  idea  is  a  very 
dangerous  one  ; — the  notion  of  a  merit,  or  exalting  virtue, 

consisting  in  a  habit  of  meditation  on  the  'things  above,' 

7* 


154  nOME    VIBTtTES. 

or  things  of  the  next  world.  Now  it  is  quite  true,  that  a 
person  of  beautiful  mind,  dwelling  on  whatever  appears 
to  them  most  desirable  and  lovely  in  a  possible  future 
will  not  only  pass  their  time  pleasantly,  but  will  eves 
acquire,  at  last,  a  vague  and  wildly  gentle  charm  of  manner 
and  feature,  which  will  give  them  an  air  of  peculiar  sanctity 
in  the  eyes  of  others.  Whatever  real  or  apparent  good  there 
may  be  in  this  result,  I  want  you  to  observe,  children,  thai 
we  have  no  real  authority  for  the  reveries  to  which  it  is 
owing.  We  are  told  nothing  distinctly  of  the  heavenly 
world ;  except  that  it  will  be  free  from  sorrow,  and  pure 
from  sin.  What  is  said  of  pearl  gates,  golden  floors,  and  the 
like,  is  accepted  as  merely  figurative  by  religious  enthusiasts 
themselves ;  and  whatever  they  pass  their  time  in  conceiving, 
whether  of  the  happiness  of  risen  souls,  of  their  intercourse, 
or  of  the  appearance  and  employment  of  the  heavenly 
powers,  is  entirely  the  product  of  their  own  imagination;  and 
as  completely  and  distinctly  a  work  of  fiction,  or  romantic 
invention,  as  any  novel  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's.  That  the 
romance  is  founded  on  religious  theory  or  doctrine  ; — that  no 
disagreeable  or  wicked  persons  are  admitted  into  the  story; 
— and  that  the  inventor  fervently  hopes  that  some  portion  of 
it  may  hereafter  come  true,  does  not  in  the  least  alter  the 
real  rature  of  the  effort  or  enjoyment. 

Now,  whatever  indulgence  may  be  granted   to    amiable 


HOME    VIRTUES.  155 

people  for  pleasing  themselves  in  this  innocent  way,  it  is 
beyond  question,  that  to  seclude  themselves  from  the  rough 
duties  of  life,  merely  to  write  religious  romances,  or,  as  in 
most  cases,  merely  to  dream  them,  without  taking  so  much 
trouble  as  is  implied  in  writing,  ought  not  to  be  received  as 
an  act  of  heroic  virtue.  But,  observe,  even  in  admitting 
thus  much,  I  have  assumed  that  the  fancies  are  just  and 
beautiful,  though  fictitious.  Now,  what  right  have  any  of 
us  to  assume  that  our  own  fancies  will  assuredly  he  either 
the  one  or  the  other?  That  they  delight  us,  and  appear 
lovely  to  us,  is  no  real  proof  of  its  not  being  wasted  time  to 
form  them :  and  we  may  surely  be  led  somewhat  to  distrust 
our  judgment  of  them  by  observing  what  ignoble  imagina- 
tions have  sometimes  sufficiently,  or  even  enthusiastically, 
occupied  the  hearts  of  others.  The  principal  source  of  the 
spirit  of  religious  contemplation  is  the  East;  now  I  have  here 
in  my  hand  a  Byzantine  image  of  Christ,  which,  if  you  will 
look  at  it  seriously,  may,  I  think,  at  once  and  for  ever  render 
you  cautious  in  the  indulgence  of  a  merely  contemplative 
habit  of  mind.  Observe,  it  is  the  fashion  to  look  at  such  a 
thing  only  as  a  piece  of  barbarous  art;  that  is  the  smallest 
part  of  its  interest.  What  I  want  you  to  see,  is  the  baseness 
and  falseness  of  a  religious  state  of  enthusiasm,  in  which 
such  a  work  could  be  dwelt  upon  with  pious  pleasure.  That 
a  figure,  with  two  small  round  black  beads  for  eyes ;  a  gilded 


156  HOME    VIRTUES. 

face,  deep  cut  into  horrible  wrinkles;  an  open  gash  for  a 
mouth,  and  a  distorted  skeleton  for  a  body,  wrapped  about, 
to  make  it  fine,  with  striped  enamel  of  blue  and  gold  ; — that 
such  a  figure,  I  say,  should  ever  have  been  thought  helpful 
towards  the  conception  of  a  Redeeming  Deity,  may  make 
you,  I  think,  very  doubtful,  even  of  the  Divine  approval, — 
much  more  of  the  Divine  inspiration, — of  religious  reverie  in 
general.  You  feel,  doubtless,  that  your  own  idea  of  Christ 
would  be  something  very  different  from  this ;  but  in  what 
does  the  difference  consist  ?  Not  in  any  more  divine  author- 
ity in  your  imagination ;  but  in  the  intellectual  work  of  six 
intervening  centuries ;  which,  simply,  by  artistic  discipline,  has 
refined  this  crude  conception  for  you,  and  filled  you,  partly 
with  an  innate  sensation,  partly  with  an  acquired  knowledge, 
of  higher  forms, — which  render  this  Byzantine  crucifix  as 
horrible  to  you,  as  it  was  pleasing  to  its  maker.  More  is 
required  to  excite  your  fancy;  but  your  fancy  is  of  no  more 
authority  than  his  was :  and  a  point  of  national  art-skill  is 
quite  conceivable,  in  which  the  best  we  can  do  now  will 
be  as  offensive  to  the  religious  dreamers  of  the  more  highly 
cultivated  time,  as  this  Byzantine  crucifix  is  to  you. 

Maky.  But  surely,  Angelico  will  always  retain  his  power 
orer  everybody? 

L.  Yes,  I  should  think,  always ;  as  the  gentle  words  of  a 
child  will :  but  you  would  be  much  surprised,  Mary,  if  you 


HOME     VIRTUES.  157 

thoroughly  took  the  pains  to  analyse,  and  had  the  perfect 
means  of  analysing,  that  power  of  Angelico, — to  discover  ita 
real  sources.  Of  course  it  is  natural,  at  first,  to  attribute  it 
50  the  pure  religious  fervour  by  which  he  was  inspired ;  but 
do  you  suppose  Angelico  was  really  the  only  monk,  in  all  the 
Christian  world  of  the  middle  ages,  who  laboured,  in  art, 
with  a  sincere  religious  enthusiasm  ? 

Mart.  No,  certainly  not. 

L.  Anything  more  frightful,  more  destructive  of  all  reli- 
gious faith  whatever,  than  such  a  supposition,  could  not  be. 
And  yet,  what  other  monk  ever  produced  such  work?  I 
have  myself  examined  carefully  upwards  of  two  thousand 
illuminated  missals,  with  especial  view  to  the  discovery  of 
any  evidence  of  a  similar  result  upon  the  art,  from  the  monk- 
ish devotion ;  and  utterly  in  vain. 

Mary.  But  then,  was  not  Fra  Angelico  a  man  of  entirely 
separate  and  exalted  genius  ? 

L.  Unquestionably ;  and  granting  him  to  be  that,  the  pecu- 
liar phenomenon  in  his  art  is,  to  me,  not  its  loveliness,  but 
its  weakness.  The  effect  of  'inspiration,'  had  it  been  real, 
on  a  man  of  consummate  genius,  should  have  been,  one  would 
have  thought,  to  make  everything  that  he  did  faultless  and 
strong,  no  less  than  lovely.  But  of  all  men,  deserving  to  be 
called  '  great,'  Fra  Angelico  permits  to  himself  the  least  par 
donable  faults,  and  the  most  palpab'e  follies.     There  is  evi 


158  home;   virtues. 

dcntly  within  him  a  sense  of  grace,  and  power  of  invention, 
as  great  as  Ghiberti"s : — we  are  in  the  habit  of  attributing 
diose  high  qualities  to  his  religious  enthusiasm  ;  but,  if  they 
were  produced  by  that  enthusiasm  in  him,  they  ought  to  bo 
produced  by  the  same  feelings  in  others ;  and  we  see  thej- 
are  not.  Whereas,  comparing  him  with  contemporary  great 
artists,  of  equal  grace  and  inveution,  one  peculiar  character 
remains  notable  in  him — which,  logically,  we  ought  therefore 
to  attribute  to  the  religious  fervour ; — and  that  distinctive 
character  is,  the  contented  indulgence  of  his  own  weaknesses, 
and  perseverance  in  his  own  ignorances. 

Mart.  But  that's  dreadful !  And  what  is  the  source 
of  the  peculiar  charm  which  we  all  feel  in  his  work? 

L.  There  are  many  sources  of  it,  Mary;  united  and 
seeming  like  one.  You  would  never  feel  that  charm  but 
in  the  work  of  an  entirely  good  man  ;  be  sure  of  that ; 
but  the  goodness  is  only  the  recipient  and  modifying  ele- 
ment, not  the  creative  one.  Consider  carefully  what  delights 
you  in  any  original  picture  of  Angelico's.  You  will  find, 
for  one  minor  thing,  an  exquisite  variety  and  brightness  of 
ornamental  work.  That  is  not  Angelico's  inspiration.  It 
is  the  final  result  of  the  labour  and  thought  of  millions  of 
artists,  of  all  nations  ;  from  the  earliest  Egyptian  pottera 
downwards — Greeks,  Byzantines,  Hindoos,  Arabs,  Gauls,  and 
Northmen — all  joining  in  the  toil ;  and  consummating  it  i» 


HOME    VIRTUES.  159 

Florence,  in  that  century,  with  such  embroidery  of  robe 
and  inlaying  of  armour  as  had  never  been  seen  till  then; 
nor,  probably,  ever  will  be  seen  more.  Augelico  merely 
takes  his  share  of  this  inheritance,  and  applies  it  in  the 
tenderest  way  to  subjects  which  are  peculiarly  acceptant 
of  it.  But  the  inspiration,  if  it  exist  anywhere,  flashes  on 
the  knight's  shield  quite  as  radiantly  as  on  the  monk's 
picture.  Examining  farther  into  the  sources  of  your  emotion 
in  the  Angelico  work,  you  will  find  much  of  the  impression 
of  sanctity  dependent  on  a  singular  repose  and  grace  of 
gesture,  consummating  itself  in  the  floating,  flying,  and 
above  all,  in  the  dancing  groups.  That  is  not  Angelico's 
inspiration.  It  is  only  a  peculiarly  tender  use  of  systems 
of  grouping  which  had  been  long  before  developed  by 
Giotto,  Memmi,  and  Orcagna;  and  the  real  root  of  it  all 
is  simply — What  do  you  think,  children?  The  beautiful 
dancing  of  the  Florentine  maidens ! . 

Dora  {indignant  again).  Now,  I  wonder  what  next ! 
Why  not  say  it  all  depended  on  Herodias'  daughter,  at 
once  ? 

L.  Yes ;  it  is  certainly  a  great  argument  against  singing 
that  there  were  once  sirens. 

Dora.  Well,  it  may  be  all  very  fine  and  philosophical , 
but  shouldn't  I  just  like  to  read  you  the  end  of  the  second 
volume  of  '  Modern  Painters '  I 


160  HOME    VIRTUES. 

L.  My  deai-,  do  you  think  any  teacher  could  be  worth 
your  listening  to,  or  anybody  else's  listening  to,  who  had 
learned  nothing,  and  altered  his  mind  in  nothing,  from 
seven  and  twenty  to  seven  and  forty?  But  that  second 
volume  is  very  good  for  you  as  far  as  it  goes.  It  is  a 
great  advance,  and  a  thoroughly  straight  and  swift  one,  to 
be  led,  as  it  is  the  main  business  of  that  second  volume  to 
lead  you,  from  Dutch  cattle-pieces,  and  ruffian-pieces,  to  Fra 
Angelico.  And  it  is  right  for  you  also,  as  you  grow  older, 
to  be  strengthened  in  the  general  sense  and  judgment  which 
may  enable  you  to  distinguish  the  weaknesses  from  the 
virtues  of  what  you  love :  else  you  might  come  to  love 
both  alike ;  or  even  the  weaknesses  without  the  virtues. 
You  might  end  by  liking  Overbeck  and  Cornelius  as  well 
as  Angelico.  However,  I  have  perhaps  been  leaning  a  little 
too  much  to  the  merely  practical  side  of  things,  in  to-night's 
talk ;  and  you  are  always  to  remember,  children,  that  I  do 
not  deny,  though  I  cannot  affirm,  the  spiritual  advantages 
resulting,  in  certain  cases,  from  enthusiastic  religious  reverie, 
and  from  the  other  practices  of  saints  and  anchorites.  The 
evidence  respecting  them  has  never  yet  been  honestly  col- 
lected, much  less  dispassionately  examined :  but  assuredly, 
there  is  in  that  direction  a  probability,  and  more  than  a 
probability,  of  dangerous  error,  while  there  is  none  what- 
ever in  the  practice  of  an   active,  cheerful,  and   benevolent 


HOME    VIRTUES. 


16' 


life.  The  hope  of  attaining  a  higher  religious  position, 
which  induces  us  to  encounter,  for  its  exalted  alternative 
the  risk  of  unhealthy  error,  is  often,  as  I  said,  founded 
more  on  pride  than  piety;  and  those  who,  in  modest  use- 
fulness, have  accepted  what  seemed  to  them  here  the  low- 
liest place  in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father,  are  not,  I  believe, 
the  least  likely  to  receive  hereafter  th2  command,  then 
unmistakable.  'Friend,  go  up  higher.' 


LIBR  ' 

- 

~1 


fiJrAl 


Cccturc  8. 
CRYSTAL  CAPRICE. 


LECTUEE  VIIX. 

CRYSTAL    CAPRICE. 

Formal    Lecture    in     Schoolroom,    after    some    practica* 
examination  of  minerals. 

L.  We  have  seen  enough,  children,  though  very  little  of 
what  might  he  seen  if  we  had  more  time,  of  mineral  struc- 
tures produced  by  visible  opposition,  or  contest  among 
elements ;  structures  of  which  the  variety,  however  great, 
need  not  surprise  us :  for  we  quarrel,  ourselves,  for  many 
and  slight  causes ; — much  more,  one  should  think,  may 
crystals,  who  can  only  feel  the  antagonism,  not  argue  about 
it.  But  there  is  a  yet  more  singular  mimicry  of  our  human 
ways  in  the  varieties  of  form  which  appear  owing  to  no 
antagonistic  force ;  but  merely  to  the  variable  humour  and 
caprice  of  the  crystals  themselves  :  and  I  have  asked  you  all 
to  come  into  the  schoolroom  to-day,  because,  of  course,  this 
is  a  part  of  the  crystal  mind  which  must  be  peculiarly  inter- 
esting to  a  feminine  audience.  (Great  symptoms  of  disap- 
proval on  the  part  of  said  audience.)  Now,  you  need  not 
pretend  that  it  will  not  interest  you ;  why  should  it  not  ? 
It  is  true  that  we  men  are  never  capricious ;  but  that  only 
makes  us  the  more  dull  and  disagreeable.      You,  who  are 


166  CRYSTAL   CATRICE. 

crystalline  in  brightness,  as  well  as  in  caprice,  charm  infi- 
nitely, by  infinitude  of  change.  {Audible  murmurs  of 
*  Worse  and  worse  1 "  '  As  if  we  could  be  got  over  thai 
way  ! '  <&c.  The  Lecturer,  however,  observing  the  expres 
sion  of  the  features  to  be  more  complacent,  proceeds.)  And 
the  most  curious  mimicry,  if  not  of  your  changes  of  fashion, 
at  least  of  your  various  modes  (in  healthy  periods)  of 
national  costume,  takes  place  among  the  crystals  of  different 
countries.  With  a  little  experience,  it  is  quite  possible  to 
say  at  a  glance,  in  what  districts  certain  crystals  have  been 
found ;  and  although,  if  we  had  knowledge  extended  and 
accurate  enough,  we  might  of  course  ascertain  the  laws  and 
circumstances  which  have  necessarily  produced  the  form 
peculiar  to  each  locality,  this  would  be  just  as  true  of  the 
fancies  of  the  human  mind.  If  we  could  know  the  exact 
circumstances  which  affect  it,  we  could  foretell  what  now 
seems  to  us  only  caprice  of  thought,  as  well  as  what  now 
seems  to  us  only  caprice  of  crystal :  nay,  so  far  as  our 
knowledge  reaches,  it  is  on  the  whole  easier  to  find  some 
reason  why  the  peasant  girls  of  Berne  should  wear  their 
caps  in  the  shape  of  butterflies ;  and  the  peasant  girls  of 
Munich  their's  in  the  shape  of  shells,  than  to  say  why  (ho  * 
rock-cry  strds  of  Dauphine*  should  all  have  their  summits  of 
the  shape  of  lip-pieces  of  flageolets,  while  those  of  St. 
Gothard  are  symmetrical ;  or  why  the  fluor  of  Chamouni  is 


CRYSTAL   CAPBICE.  16*7 

rose-coloured,  and  in  octahedrons,  while  the  fluor  of  Wear 
dale  is  green,  and  in  cubes.  Still  farther  removed  is  tbe 
hope,  at  present,  of  accounting  for  minor  differences  in 
modes  of  grouping  and  construction.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
caprices  of  this  single  mineral,  quartz; — variations  upon  a 
single  theme.  It  has  many  forms ;  but  see  what  it  will 
make  out  of  this  one,  the  six-sided  prism.  For  shortness'  sake, 
I  shall  call  the  body  of  the  prism  its  '  column,'  and  the  pyra- 
mid at  the  extremities  its  '  cap.'  Xow,  here,  first  you  have  a 
straight  column,  as  long  and  thin  as  a  stalk  of  asparagus, 
with  two  little  caps  at  the  ends;  and  here  you  have  a  short 
thick  column,  as  solid  as  a  haystack,  with  two  fat  caps  at  the 
ends ;  and  here  you  have  two  caps  fastened  together,  and 
no  column  at  all  between  them!  Then  here  is  a  crystal  with 
its  column  fat  in  the  middle,  and  tapering  to  a  little  cap;  and 
here  is  one  stalked  like  a  mushroom,  with  a  huge  cap  put  on 
the  top  of  a  slender  column!  Then  here  is  a  column  built 
wholly  out  of  little  caps,  with  a  large  smooth  cap  at  the  top. 
And  here  is  a  column  built  of  columns  and  caps ;  the  caps  all 
truncated  about  halfway  to  their  points.  And  in  both  these 
last,  the  little  crystals  are  set  anyhow,  and  build  the  large  one 
in  a  disorderly  way  ;  but  here  is  a  crystal  made  of  columns 
and  truncated  caps,  set  in  regular  terraces  all  the  way  up. 

Mary.  But  are  not  these,  groups  of  crystals,  rather  than 
one  crystal? 


168  CRYSTAL    CAPRICE. 

L.  What  do  you  mean  by  a  group,  and  what  by  ona 
crystal ? 

Dora  {audibly  aside,  to  Mart,  who  is  brought  to  pause). 
You  know  you  are  never  expected  to  answer,  Mary. 

L.  I'm  sure  this  is  easy  enough.  What  do  you  mean  by 
a  group  of  people  ? 

Mary.  Three  or  four  together,  or  a  good  many  together, 
like  the  caps  in  these  crystals. 

L.  But  when  a  great  many  persons  get  together  they  doD't 
take  the  shape  of  one  person? 

(Mary  still  at  pause.) 

Isabel.  ISTo,  because  they  can't;  but,  you  know  the  crystal* 
can ;  so  why  shouldn't  they  ? 

L.  Well,  they  don't;  that  is  to  say,  they  don't  always, 
nor  even  often.     Look  here,  Isabel. 

Isabel.  What  a  nasty  ugly  thing ! 

L.  I'm  glad  you  think  it  so  ugly.  Yet  it  is  made  of  beau- 
tiful crystals ;  they  are  a  little  grey  and  cold  in  colour,  but 
most  of  them  are  clear. 

Isabel.  But  they're  in  such  horrid,  horrid  disorder ! 

L.  Yes ;  all  disorder  is  horrid,  when  it  is  among  things 
that  are  naturally  orderly.  Some  little  girls'  rooms  are  natu- 
rally ^orderly,  I  suppose ;  or  I  don't  know  how  they  could 
live  in  them,  if  they  cry  out  so  when  they  only  see  quarta 
crystals  in  confusion. 


CRYSTAL  CAPRICE.  109 

Isabel.  Oh !  but  how  come  they  to  be  like  that  ? 

L.  You  may  well  ask.  And  yet  you  will  always  hear  peo- 
ple talking  as  if  they  thought  order  more  wonderful  than  dis- 
order !  It  is  wonderful — as  we  have  seen  ;  but  to  me,  as  to 
you,  child,  the  supremely  wonderful  thing  is  that  nature 
should  ever  be  ruinous  or  wasteful,  or  deathful !  I  look  at 
this  wild  piece  of  crystallisation  with  endless  astonishment. 

Mart.  Where  does  it  come  from  ? 

L.  The  Tete  Noire  of  Chamonix.  What  makes  it  more 
strange  is  that  it  should  be  in  a  vein  of  fine  quartz  rock.  If 
it  were  in  a  mouldering  rock,  it  would  be  natural  enough ; 
but  in  the  midst  of  so  fine  substance,  here  are  the  crystals 
tossed  in  a  heap ;  some  large,  myriads  small  (almost  aa 
small  as  dust),  tumbling  over  each  other  like  a  terrified 
crowd,  and  glued  together  by  the  sides,  and  edges,  and  backs, 
and  heads  ;  some  warped,  and  some  pushed  out  and  in,  and 
all  spoiled,  and  each  spoiling  the  rest. 

Mart.  And  how  flat  they  all  are  ! 

L.  Yes  ;  that's  the  fashion  at  the  Tete  Noire. 

Mary.  But  surely  this  is  ruin,  not  caprice  ? 

L.  I  believe  it  is  in  great   part  misfortune ;   and  we  will 

xararae  these  crystal  troubles  in  next  lecture.     But  if  you 

want  to  see  the  gracefullest  and  happiest  caprices  of  which 

dust  is  capable,  you  must  go  to  the  Hartz ;  not  that  I  ever 

mean  to  go  there  myself,  for  I  want  to  retain  the  romantic 

8 


170  CRYSTAL   CAPRICE. 

feeling  about  the  name  ;  and  I  have  done  myself  some  harm 
already  by  seeing  the  monotonous  and  heavy  form  of  the 
Brocken  from  the  suburbs  of  Brunswick.  But  whether  the 
mountains  be  picturesque  or  not,  the  tricks  which  the  goblins 
(as  I  am  told)  teach  the  crystals  in  them,  are  incomparably 
pretty.  They  work  chiefly  on  the  mind  of  a  docile,  bluish- 
coloured,  carbonate  of  lime ;  which  comes  out  of  a  grey 
limestone.  The  goblins  take  the  greatest  possible  care  of  its 
education,  and  see  that  nothing  happens  to  it  to  hurt  its  tem- 
per ;  and  when  it  may  be  supposed  to  have  arrived  at  the 
crisis  which  is,  to  a  well  brought  up  mineral,  what  presenta- 
tion at  court  is  to  a  young  lady — after  which  it  is  expected 
to  set  fashions — there's  no  end  to  its  pretty  ways  of  behav- 
ing. First  it  will  make  itself  into  pointed  darts  as  fine  as 
hoar-frost ;  here,  it  is  changed  into  a  white  fur  as  fine  as  silk  ; 
here  into  little  crowns  and  circlets,  as  bright  as  silver ;  as  if 
for  the  gnome  princesses  to  wear  ;  here  it  is  in  beautiful  lit- 
tle plates,  for  them  to  eat  off ;  presently  it  is  in  towers  which 
they  might  be  imprisoned  in ;  presently  in  caves  and  cells, 
where  they  may  make  nun-gnomes  of  themselves,  and  no 
gnome  ever  hear  of  them  more  ;  here  is  some  of  it  in  sheaves, 
like  corn  ;  here,  some  in  drifts,  like  snow ;  here,  some  in  rays, 
like  stars :  and,  though  these  are,  all  of  them,  necessarily, 
shapes  that  the  mineral  takes  in  other  places,  they  are  all 
taken  here  with  such  a  grace  that  you  recognise  the  high 


CRYSTAL   CAPRICE.  1  7  J 

caste  and  breeding  of  the  crystals  wherever  you  meet  them  t 
and  know  at  once  they  are  Hartz-born. 

Of  course,  such  fine  things  as  these  are  only  done  by  crys 
tals  which  are  perfectly  good,  and  good-humoured ;  and  of 
course,  also,  there  are  ill-humoured  crystals  who  torment 
each  other,  and  annoy  quieter  crystals,  yet  without  coming 
to  anything  like  serious  war.  Here  (for  once)  is  some  ill-dis- 
posed quartz,  tormenting  a  peaceable  octahedron  of  fluor,  in 
mere  caprice.  I  looked  at  it  the  other  night  so  long,  and  so 
wonderingly,  just  before  putting  my  candle  out,  that  I  fell 
into  another  strange  dream.  But  you  don't  care  about 
dreams. 

Dora.  JSTo ;  we  didn't,  yesterday ;  but  you  know  we  are 
made  up  of  caprice ;  so  we  do,  to-day :  and  you  must  tell 
it  us  directly. 

L.  Well,  you  see,  Neith  and  her  work  were  still  much  in 
my  mind  ;  and  then,  I  had  been  looking  over  these  Hartz 
things  for  you,  and  thinking  of  the  sort  of  grotesque  sympa- 
thy there  seemed  to  be  in  them  with  the  beautiful  fringe  and 
pinnacle  work  of  Northern  architecture.  So,  when  I  fell 
asleep,  I  thought  I  saw  Neith  and  St.  Barbara  talking 
together. 

Dora.  But  what  had  St.  Barbara  to  do  with  it  ?  * 

L.  My  dear,  I  am  quite  sure  St.  Barbara  is  the  patroness 
*  Note  v. 


172  CRYSTAL   CAPRICE. 

of  good  architects :  not  St.  Thomas,  whatever  the  old  build- 
ers thought.  It  might  be  very  fine,  according  to  the  monks' 
notions,  in  St.  Thomas,  to  give  all  his  employer's  money 
way  to  the  poor :  but  breaches  of  contract  are  bad  founda- 
tions ;  and  I  believe,  it  was  not  he,  but  St.  Barbara,  who 
overlooked  the  work  in  all  the  buildings  you  and  I  care 
about.  However  that  may  be,  it  was  certainly  she  whom  I 
saw  in  my  dream  with  Neith.  Neith  was  sitting  weaving, 
and  I  thought  she  looked  sad,  and  threw  her  shuttle  slowly  ; 
and  St.  Barbara  was  standing  at  her  side,  in  a  stiff  little 
gown,  all  ins  and  outs,  and  angles ;  but  so  bright  with  em- 
broidery that  it  dazzled  me  whenever  she  moved;  the  train 
of  it  was  just  like  a  heap  of  broken  jewels,  it  was  so  stiff, 
and  full  of  coraers,  and  so  many-coloured,  and  bright.  Pier 
hair  fell  over  her  shoulders  in  long,  delicate  waves,  from 
under  a  little  three  pinnacled  crown,  like  a  tower.  She  was 
asking  Neith  about  the  laws  of  architecture  in  Egypt  and 
Greece  ;  and  when  Neith  told  her  the  measures  of  the  pyra- 
mids, St.  Barbara  said  she  thought  they  would  have  been 
better  three-cornered  :  and  when  Neith  told  her  the  measures 
of  the  Parthenon,  St.  Barbara  said  she  thought  it  ought  to 
have  had  two  transepts.  But  she  was  pleased  when  Neith 
told  her  of  the  temple  of  the  dew,  and  of  the  Caryan  maid- 
ens bearing  its  frieze:  and  then  she  thought  that  perhaps 
Neith  would  like  to  hear  what  sort  of  temples  she  was  buil  .1 


CRYSTAL   CAPRICE.  lV3 

mg  herself,  in  the  French  valleys,  and  on  the  crags  of  che 
Rhine.  So  she  began  gossiping,  jnst  as  one  of  you  might 
to  an  old  lady :  and  certainly  she  talked  in  the  sweetest  way 
in  the  world  to  Neith  ;  and  explained  to  her  all  about  crock- 
ets and  pinnacles :  and  Neith  sat,  looking  very  grave ;  and 
always  graver  as  St.  Barbara  went  on ;  till  at  last,  I'm  sorry 
to  say,  St.  Barbara  lost  her  temper  a  little. 

Mat  {very  grave  herself).     '  St.  Barbara?' 

L.  Yes,  May.  Why  shouldn't  she?  It  was  very  tire- 
some of  Neith  to  sit  looking  like  that. 

Mat.  But,  then,  St.  Barbara  was  a  saint ! 

L.  What's  that,  May  ? 

Mat.  A  saint !     A  saint  is — I  am  sure  you  know  1 

L.  If  I  did,  it  would  not  make  me  sure  that  you  knew 
too,  May  :  but  I  don't. 

Violet  {expressing  the  incredulity  of  the  audience).  Oh, 
— sir ! 

L.  That  is  to  say,  I  know  that  people  are  called  saints 
who  are  supposed  to  be  better  than  others:  but  I  don't 
know  how  much  better  they  must  be,  in  order  to  be  saints  ; 
nor  how  nearly  anybody  may  be  a  saint,  and  yet  not  be  quite 
one ;  nor  whether  everybody  who  is  called  a  saint  was 
one ;  nor  whether  everybody  who  isn't  called  a  saint,  isn't 
one. 

{General  silence;  the  audience   feeling   themselves    on 


174  CRYSTAL    CAPRICE. 

the  verge  of  the  Infinities — and  a  little  shocked — and 
much  puzzled  by  so  many  questions  at  once.) 

L.  Besides,  did  you  never  hear  that  verse  about  being* 
called  to  be  saints '  ? 

May  {repeats  Mom.  i.  1). 

L.  Quite  right,  May.  Well,  then,  who  are  called  to  be 
that  ?     People  in  Rome  only  ? 

May.  Everybody,  I  suppose,  whom  God  loves. 

L.  What !  little  girls  as  well  as  other  people  ? 

Mat.  All  grown-up  people,  I  mean. 

L.  Why  not  little  girls  ?  Are  they  wickeder  when  they 
are  little  ? 

May.  Oh,  I  hope  not. 

L.  Why  not  little  girls,  then  ? 

(Pause.) 

Lily.  Because,  you  know,  we  can't  be  worth  anything  if 
we're  ever  so  good  ; — I  mean,  if  we  try  to  be  ever  so  good  ; 
and  we  can't  do  difficult  things — like  saints. 

L.  I  am  afraid,  my  dear,  that  old  people  are  not  more  able 
or  willing  for  their  difficulties  than  you  children  are  for  yours. 
All  1  can  say  is,  that  if  ever  I  see  any  of  you,  when  you  are 
seven  or  eight  and  twenty,  knitting  your  brows  over  any 
work  you  want  to  do  or  to  understand,  as  I  saw  you,  Lily, 
knitting  your  brows  over  your  slate  this  morning,  1  should 
think  you  very  noble  women.     But — to  come  back  to  my 


CRYSTAL   CAPRICE.  175 

dream — St.  Barbara  did  lose  her  temper  a  little  ;  and  I  was 
not  surprised.  For  you  can't  think  how  provoking  Keith 
looked,  sitting  there  j  ust  like  a  statue  of  sandstone ;  only 
going  on  weaving,  like  a  machine;  and  never  qnickening  the 
cast  of  her  shuttle  ;  while  St.  Barbara  was  telling  her  so 
eagerly  all  about  the  most  beautiful  things,  and  chattering 
away,  as  fast  as  bells  ring  on  Christinas  Eve,  till  she  saw  that 
Keith  didn't  care  ;  and  then  St.  Barbara  got  as  red  as  a  rose, 
and  stopped,  just  in  time ; — or  I  think  she  would  really  have 
said  something  naughty. 

Isabel.  Oh,  please,  but  didn't  Keith  say  anything  then '( 

L.  Yes.  She  said,  quite  quietly,  'It  maybe  very  pretty, 
my  love  ;  but  it  is  all  nonsense.' 

Isabel.  Oh  dear,  oh  dear ;  and  then  ? 

L.  Well;  then  I  was  a  little  angry  myself,  and  hoped  St. 
Barbara  would  be  quite  angry;  but  she  wasn't.  She  bit  het 
lips  fii-st;  and  then  gave  a  great  sigh— such  a  wild,  sweet 
sigh — and  then  she  knelt  down  and  hid  her  face  on  Keith's 
knees.     Then  Keith  smiled  a  little,  and  was  moved. 

Isabel.  Oh,  I  am  so  glad ! 

L.  And  she  touched  St.  Barbara's  forehead  with  a  flower 
of  white  lotus  ;  and  St.  Barbara  sobbed  once  or  twice,  and 
then  said :  '  If  you  only  could  see  how  beautiful  it  is,  and 
how  much  it  makes  people  feel  what  is  good  and  lovely  ;  and 
if  you  could  only  hear  the  children  singing  in  the  Lady  cha 


176  CRYSTAL   CAPRICE. 

pels  ! '  And  Neith  smiled, — but  still  sadly, — and  sai  1,  '  How 
do  you  know  what  I  have  seen,  or  heard,  my  love?  Do  you 
thmk  all  those  vaults  and  towers  of  yours  have  been  buil 
without  me?  There  was  not  a  pillar  in  your  Giotto's  Santa 
Maria  del  Fiore  which  I  did  not  set  true  by  my  spearshaft  as 
it  rose.  But  this  pinnacle  and  flame  work  which  has  set  your 
little  heart  on  fire,  is  all  vanity  ;  and  you  will  see  what  it  will 
come  to,  and  that  soon ;  and  none  will  grieve  for  it  more 
than  I.  And  then  every  one  will  disbelieve  your  pretty 
symbols  and  types.  Men  must  be  spoken  simply  to,  my 
dear,  if  you  would  guide  them  kindly,  and  long.'  But  St. 
Barbara  answered,  that,  '  Indeed  she  thought  every  one  liked 
her  work,'  and  that  '  the  people  of  different  towns  were  aa 
eager  about  their  cathedral  towers  as  about  their  privileges 
or  their  markets ;'  and  then  she  asked  Neith  to  come  and 
build  something  with  her,  wall  against  tower;  and  'see 
whether  the  people  will  be  as  much  pleased  with  your  build- 
ing as  with  mine.'  But  Neith  answered,  '  I  will  not  contend 
with  you,  my  dear.  I  strive  not  with  those  who  love  me ; 
and  for  those  who  hate  me,  it  is  not  well  to  strive  with  me, 
as  weaver  Arachne  knows.  And  remember,  child,  that 
nothing  is  ever  done  beautifully,  which  is  done  in  rivalship; 
nor  nobly,  wrhich  is  done  in  pride.' 

Then   St.   Barbara   hung  her  'head  quite  down,  and   said 
she   was   very  sorry  she  had   been  so   foolish ;    and  kissed 


CRYSTAL   CAPEICE.  177 

Neitb  ;  and  stood  thinking  a  minute  :  and  then  her  eyes  got 
bright  again,  and  she  said,  she  would  go  directly  and  build  a 
chapel  with  five  windows  in  it ;  four  for  the  four  cardinal 
virtues,  and  one  for  humility,  in  the  middle,  bigger  than  the 
rest.  And  Xeith  very  nearly  laughed  quite  out,  I  thought  ; 
certainly  her  beautiful  lips  lost  all  their  sternness  for  an  in- 
stant ;  then  she  said,  '  Well,  love,  build  it,  but  do  not  put  so 
many  colours  into  your  windows  as  you  usually  do ;  else 
no  one  will  be  able  to  see  to  read,  inside :  and  when  it  is 
built,  let  a  poor  village  priest  consecrate  it,  and  not  an  arch- 
bishop.' St.  Barbara  started  a  little,  I  thought,  and  turned 
as  if  to  say  something ;  but  changed  her  mind,  and  gathered 
up  her  traiu,  and  went  out.  And  Keith  bent  herself  again  to 
her  loom,  in  which  she  was  weaving  a  web  of  strange  dark 
colours,  I  thought ;  but  perhaps  it  was  only  after  the  glitter- 
ing of  St.  Barbara's  embroidered  train :  and  I  tried  to  make 
out  the  figures  in  Neith's  web,  and  confused  myself  among 
tbem,  as  one  always  does  in'  dreams ;  and  then  the  dream 
changed  altogether,  and  I  found  myself,  all  at  once,  among  a 
crowd  of  little  Gothic  and  Egyptian  spirits,  who  were  quar- 
relling :  at  least  the  Gothic  ones  were  trying  to  quarrel ;  for 
the  Egyptian  ones  only  sat  with  their  hands  on  their  knees,  and 
their  aprons  sticking  out  very  stiffly ;  and  stared.  And  after  a 
while  I  began  to  understand  what  the  matter  was.     It  seemed 

that  some  of  the  troublesome  building  imps,  who  meddle  and 

8* 


178  CEYSTAL  CAPKICE. 

make  continually,  even  in  the  best  Gothic  work,  hail  leer 
listening  to  St.  Barbara's  talk  with  Keith;  and  had  made  up 
their  minds  that  Neith  had  no  workpeople  who  could  build 
against  them.  They  were  but  dull  imps,  as  you  may  fancy 
by  their  thinking  that ;  and  never  had  done  much,  except 
disturbing  the  great  Gothic  building  angels  at  their  work, 
and  playing  tricks  to  each  other ;  indeed,  of  late  they  had 
been  living  years  and  years,  like  bats,  up  under  the  cornices 
of  Strasbourg  and  Cologne  cathedrals,  with  nothing  to  do 
but  to  make  mouths  at  the  people  below.  However,  they 
thought  they  knew  everything  about  tower  building;  and 
those  who  had  heard  what  Neith  said,  told  the  rest;  and 
they  all  flew  down  directly,  chattering  in  German,  like  jack- 
daws, to  show  Keith's  people  what  they  could  do.  And  they 
had  found  some  of  Neith's  old  workpeople  somewhere  near 
Sais,  sitting  in  the  sun,  with  their  hands  on  their  knees  ;  and 
abused  them  heartily:  and  Neith's  people  did  not  mind  at 
first,  but,  after  a  while,  they  seemed  to  get  tired  of  the  noise; 
and  one  or  two  rose  up  slowly,  and  laid  hold  of  their  measur 
ing  rods,  and  said,  '  If  St.  Barbara's  people  liked  to  build 
with  them,  tower  against  pyramid,  they  would  show  them 
how  to  lay  stones.'  Then  the  Gothic  little  spirits  threw  a 
great  many  double  somersaults  for  joy  ;  and  put  the  tips  of 
their  tongues  out  slily  to  each  other,  on  one  side ;  and  I  heard 
the  Egyptians  say,  'they  must  be  some  new  kind  of  frog— 


CRYSTAL    CAPltlOE.  179 

they  didn't  think  there  was  much  building  ic  the  n.'  How- 
ever, the  stiff  old  workers  took  their  rods,  as  I  said,  and 
measured  out  a  square  space  of  sand;  but  as  soon  as  the 
German  spirits  saw  that,  they  declared  they  wanted  avactly 
that  bit  of  ground  to  build  on,  themselves.  Then  the  Egyp- 
tian builders  offered  to  go  farther  off,  and  the  German  ones 
said,  '  Ja  wohl.'  But  as  soon  as  the  Egyptians  had  measured 
out  another  square,  the  little  Germans  said  they  must  have 
some  of  that  too.  Then  Keith's  people  laughed  ;  and  said, 
'  they  might  take  as  much  as  they  liked,  but  they  would  not 
move  the  plan  of  their  pyramid  again.'  Then  the  little  Gp^ 
mans  took  three  pieces,  and  began  to  build  three  spires 
directly ;  one  large,  and  two  little.  And  when  the  Egyptians 
saw  they  had  fairly  begun,  they  laid  their  foundation  all 
round,  of  large  square  stones  :  and  began  to  build,  so  steadily 
that  they  had  like  to  have  swallowed  up  the  three  little  Ger- 
man spires.  So  when  the  Gothic  spirits  saw  that,  they  built 
their  spires  leaning,  like  the  tower  of  Pisa,  that  they  might 
stick  out  at  the  side  of  the  pyramid.  And  Neith's  people 
stared  at  them ;  and  thought  it  very  clever,  but  very  wrong ; 
and  on  they  went,  in  their  own  way,  and  said  nothing.  Then 
the  little  Gothic  spirits  were  terribly  provoked  because  they 
eould  not  spoil  the  shape  of  the  pyramid ;  and  they  sat  down 
all  along  the  ledges  of  it  to  make  faces  ;  but  that  did  no  good. 
Then  they  ran  to  the  corners,  and  put  their  elbows  on  theii 


180  CEYSTAX.  CAPRICE. 

knees,  and  stuck  themselves  out  as  far  as  they  could,  and 
made  more  faces  ;  but  that  did  no  good,  neither.  Then  ihey 
looked  up  to  the  sky,  and  opened  their  mouths  wide,  and 
gobbled,  and  said  it  was  too  hot  for  work,  and  wondered 
when  it  would  rain  ;  but  that  did  no  good,  neither.  And  all 
the  while  the  Egyptian  spirits  were  laying  step  above  step 
patiently.  But  when  the  Gothic  ones  looked,  and  saw  how 
high  they  had  got,  they  said,  '  Ach,  Himmel ! '  and  flew 
down  in  a  great  black  cluster  to  the  bottom  ;  and  swept  out 
a  level  spot  in  the  sand  with  their  wings,  in  no  time,  and 
began  building  a  tower  straight  up,  as  fast  as  they  could. 
And  the  Egyptians  stood  still  again  to  stare  at  them ;  for  the 
Gothic  spirits  had  got  quite  into  a  passion,  and  were  really 
working  very  wonderfully.  They  cut  the  sandstone  into  strips 
as  fine  as  reeds  ;  and  put  one  reed  on  the  top  of  another,  so  that 
you  could  not  see  where  they  fitted :  and  they  twisted  them 
in  and  out  like  basket  work,  and  knotted  them  into  likenesses 
of  ugly  faces,  and  of  strange  beasts  biting  each  other ;  and 
up  they  went,  and  up  still,  and  they  made  spiral  staircases  at 
the  corners,  for  the  loaded  workers  to  come  up  by  (for  I  saw 
they  were  but  weak  imps,  and  could  not  fly  with  stones  on 
their  backs),  and  then  they  made  traceried  galleries  for  them 
to  run  round  by ;  and  so  up  again ;  with  finer  and  finer  work, 
till  the  Egyptians  wondered  whether  they  meant  the  thing 
for  a  tower  or  a  pillar :   and  I  heard  them  saying  to  cne 


CRYSTAL   CAPRICE.  181 

another,  '  It  was  nearly  as  pretty  as  lotus  stalks ;  and  if  it 
were  not  for  the  ugly  faces,  there  would  be  a  fine  temple,  if 
they  were  going  to  build  it  all  with  pillars  as  big  as  that !' 
But  iu  a  minute  afterwards, — just  as  the  Gothic  spirits  had 
carried  their  work  as  high  as  the  upper  course,  but  three  or 
four,  of  the  pyramid— the  Egyptians  called  out  to  them  to 
'mind  what  they  were  about,  for  the  sand  was  running  away 
from  under  one  of  their  tower  corners.'  But  it  was  too  late 
to  mind  what  they  were  about ;  for,  in  another  instant,  the 
whole  tower  sloped  aside ;  and  the  Gothic  imps  rose  out  of 
it  like  a  flight  of  puffins,  in  a  single  cloud  ;  but  screaming  worse 
than  any  puffins  you  ever  heard  :  and  down  came  the  tower, 
all  in  a  piece,  like  a  falling  poplar,  with  its  head  right  on  the 
flank  of  the  pyramid;  against  which  it  snapped  short  off. 
And  of  course  that  waked  me  ! 

Mart.  What  a  shame  of  you  to  have  such  a  dream,  after 
all  you  have  told  us  about  Gothic  architecture  ! 

L.  If  you  have  vuderstood  anything  I  ever  told  you  about 
it,  you  know  that  no  architecture  was  ever  corrupted  more 
miserably;  or  abolished  more  justly  by  the  accomplishment 
of  its  own  follies.  Besides,  even  in  its  days  of  power,  it  was 
subject  to  catastrophes  of  this  kind.  I  have  stood  too  often, 
mourning,  bv  the  grand  fragment  of  the  apse  of  Beauvais, 
not  to  have  that  fact  well  burnt  into  me.  Still,  you  must 
have  seen,  surely,  that  these  imps  were  of  the  Flamboyant 


182  CRYSTAL   CAPRICE. 

school;  or,  at  least,  of  the  German  schools  correspondent 
with  it  in  extravagance. 

Mary.  But,  then,  where  is  the  crystal  about  which  you 
dreamed  all  this? 

L.  Here;  but  I  suppose  little  Pthah  has  touched  it  again, 
for  it  is  very  small.  But,  you  see,  here  is  the  pyramid,  built 
of  great  square  stones  of  fluor  spar,  straight  up;  and  here 
are  the  three  little  pinnacles  of  mischievous  quartz,  which 
have  set  themselves,  at  the  same  time,  on  the  same  founda- 
tion ;  only  they  lean  like  the  tower  of  Pisa,  and  come  out 
obliquely  at  the  side :  and  here  is  one  great  spire  of  quartz 
which  seems  as  if  it  had  been  meant  to  stand  straight  up,  a 
little  way  off;  and  then  had  fallen  down  against  the  pyramid 
base,  breaking  its  pinnacle  away.  In  reality,  it  has  crystal- 
lised horizontally,  and  terminated  imperfectly:  but,  then,  by 
what  caprice  does  one  crystal  form  horizontally,  when  all 
the  rest  stand  upright  ?  But  this  is  nothing  to  the  phanta- 
sies of  fluor,  and  quartz,  and  some  other  such  companions, 
when  they  get  leave  to  do  anything  they  like.  I  could  show 
you  fifty  specimens,  about  every  one  of  which  you  might 
fancy  a  new  fairy  tale.  Not  that,  in  truth,  any  crystals  get 
leave  to  do  quite  what  they  bike ;  and  many  of  them  are 
eadly  tried,  and  have  little  time  for  caprices — poor  things! 

Mary.  I  thought  they  always  looked  as  if  they  were  eithei 
in  play  or  in  mischief!     What  trials  have  they? 


CRYSTAL   CAPRICE.  183 

L.  Trials  much  like  our  own.     Sickness,  and  starvation 
fevers,  and  agues,  and  palsy ;  oppression ;  and  old  age,  and 
the  necessity  of  passing  away  in  their  time,  like  all  else.     If 
there's  any  pity  in  you,  you  must  come  to-morrow,  and  tak 
some  part  in  these  crystal  griefs. 

Dora.  I  am  sure  we  shall  cry  till  our  eyes  are  red. 

L.  Ah,  you  may  laugh,  Dora :  but  I've  been  made  grave, 
not  once,  nor  twice,  to  see  that  even  crystals  '  cannot  choose 
but  be  old'  at  last.  It  may  be  but  a  shallow  proverb  of  the 
Justice's ;  but  it  is  a  shrewdly  wide  one. 

Dora  (pensive,  for  once).  I  suppose  it  is  very  dreadful 
to  be  old !  But  then  {brightening  again),  what  should  we 
do  without  our  dear  old  friends,  and  our  nice  old  lecturers  ? 

L.  If  all  nice  old  lecturers  were  minded  as  little  as  one  I 
know  of 

Dora.  And  if  they  all  meant  as  little  what  they  say,  w^uld 
they  not  deserve  it  ?    But  we'll  come — we'll  come,  and  «?«y. 


Ccctttrc  9. 
CRYSTAL  SORROWS. 


LECTURE  IX. 

CRYSTAL  SORROWS. 
Working  Lecture  in  Schoolroom. 

L,  We  have  been  hitherto  talking,  children,  as  if  crystal* 
might  live,  and  play,  and  quarrel,  and  behave  ill  or  well, 
according  to  their  characters,  without  interruption  from  any- 
thing else.  But  so  far  from  this  being  so,  nearly  all  crystals, 
whatever  their  characters,  have  to  live  a  hard  life  of  it,  and 
meet  with  many  misfortunes.  If  we  could  see  far  enough, 
we  should  find,  indeed,  that,  at  the  root,  all  their  vices  were 
misfortunes  :  but  to-day  I  want  you  to  see  what  sort  of 
troubles  the  best  crystals  have  to  go  through,  occasionally, 
by  no  fault  of  their  own. 

This  black  thing,  which  is  one  of  the  prettiest  of  the  very 
Cqw  pretty  black  things  in  the  world,  is  called  '  Tourmaline.' 
It  may  be  transparent,  and  green,  or  red,  as  well  as  black ; 
and  then  no  stone  can  be  prettier  (only,  all  the  light  that 
gets  into  it,  I  believe,  comes  out  a  good  deal  the  wcrse  ;  and 
is  not  itself  again  for  a  long  while).  But  this  is  the  com 
monest  state  of  it, — opaque,  and  as  black  as  jet. 

Maky.  What  does  '  Tourmaline '  mean  ? 


188  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

L.  They  say  it  is  Ceylanese,  and  I  don't  know  Ceylanese ; 
but  we  may  always  be  thankful  for  a  graceful  word,  what 
ever  it  means. 

Mart.  And  what  is  it  made  of? 

L.  A  little  of  everything;  there's  always  flint,  and  clay, 
and  magnesia  in  it ;  and  the  black  is  iron,  according  to  its 
fancy ;  and  there's  boracic  acid,  if  you  know  what  that  is ; 
and  if  you  don't,  I  cannot  tell  you  to-day;  and  it  doesn't 
signify :  and  there's  potash,  and  soda ;  and,  on  the  whole,  the 
chemistry  of  it  is  more  like  a  mediaeval  doctor's  prescription, 
than  the  making  of  a  respectable  mineral :  but  it  may,  per- 
haps, be  owing  to  the  strange  complexity  of  its  make,  that 
it  has  a  notable  habit  which  makes  it,  to  me,  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  minerals.  You  see  these  two  crystals  are  broken 
right  across,  in  many  places,  just  as  if  they  had  been  shafts 
of  black  marble  fallen  from  a  ruinous  temple  ;  and  here  they 
lie,  imbedded  in  white  quartz,  fragment  succeeding  fragment, 
keeping  the  line  of  the  original  crystal,  while  the  quartz  fills 
up  the  intervening  spaces.  Now  tourmaline  has  a  trick  ot 
doing  this,  more  than  any  other  mineral  I  know:  here  is 
another  bit  which  I  picked  up  on  the  glacier  of  Macugnaga ; 
it  is  broken,  like  a  pillar  built  of  very  flat  broad  stones,  into 
about  thirty  joints,  and  all  these  are  heaved  and  warped 
away  from  each  other  sideways,  almost  into  a  line  of  steps; 
and  then  all  is  filled  up  with  quartz  paste.     And  here,  lastly, 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS.  ]  89 

is  a  green  Indian  piece,  in  which  the. pillar  is  first  disjointed, 
and  then  wrung  round  into  the  shape  of  an  S. 

Mary.  How  can  this  have  been  done  ? 

L.  There  are  a  thousand  ways  in  which  it  may  have  been 
done;  the  difficulty  is  not  to  account  for  the  doing  of  it; 
but  for  the  showing  of  it  in  some  crystals,  and  not  in  others. 
You  never  by  any  chance  get  a  quartz  crystal  broken  or 
twisted  in  this  way.  If  it  break  or  twist  at  all,  which  it  does 
sometimes,  like  the  spire  of  Dijon,  it  is  by  its  own  will  or 
fault ;  it  never  seems  to  have  been  passively  crushed.  But, 
for  the  forces  which  cause  this  passive  ruin  of  the  tourma- 
line,— here  is  a  stone  which  will  show  you  multitudes  of  them 
in  operation  at  once.  It  is  known  as  'brecciated  agate,' 
beautiful,  as  you  see ;  and  highly  valued  as  a  pebble : 
yet,  so  far  as  I  can  read  or  hear,  no  one  has  ever  looked 
at  it  with  the  least  attention.  At  the  first  glance,  yoxi  see  it 
is  made  of  very  fine  red  striped  agates,  which  have  been 
broken  into  small  pieces,  and  fastened  together  again  by 
paste,  also  of  agate.  There  would  be  nothing  wonderful 
in  this,  if  this  were  all.  It  is  well  known  that  by  the  move- 
ments of  strata,  portions  of  rock  are  often  shattered  to 
phces: — well  known  also  that  agate  is  a  deposit  of  flint  by 
water  under  certain  conditions  of  heat  and  pressure :  there  is, 
therefore,  nothing  wonderful  in  an  agate's  being  broken ; 
aad   nothing    wonderful    in    its   being    mended    with   the 


190  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

solution  out  of  which  it  was  itself  originally  congealed. 
And  with  this  explanation,  most  people,  looking  at  a  brec 
ciated  agate,  or  brecciated  anything,  seem  to  be  satisfied 
I  was  so  myself,  for  twenty  years ;  but,  lately  happening 
to  stay  for  some  time  at  the  Swiss  Baden,  where  the 
beach  of  the  Limmat  is  almost  wholly  composed  of  brec- 
ciated limestones,  I  began  to  examine  them  thoughtfully  ; 
and  perceived,  in  the  end,  that  they  were,  one  and  all, 
knots  of  as  rich  mystery  as  any  poor  little  human  brain 
was  ever  lost  in.  That  piece  of  agate  in  your  hand,  Mary, 
will  show  you  many  of  the  common  phenomena  of  breccias  ; 
but  you  need  not  knit  your  brows  over  it  in  that  way; 
depend  upon  it,  neither  you  nor  I  shall  ever  know  anything 
about  the  way  it  was  made,  as  long  as  we  live. 

Dora.  That  does  not  seem  much  to  depend  upon. 

L.  Pardon  me,  puss.  When  once  we  gain  some  real  notion 
of  the  extent  and  the  unconquerableness  of  our  ignorance,  it 
is  a  very  broad  and  restful  thing  to  depend  upon :  you  can 
throw  yourself  upon  it  at  ease,  as  on  a  cloud,  to  feast  with 
the  gods.  You  do  not  thenceforward  trouble  yourself, — nor 
any  one  else, — with  theories,  or  the  contradiction  of  theories  ,• 
you  neither  get  headache  nor  heartburning  ;  and  you  never 
more  waste  your  poor  little  store  of  strength,  or  allowauce 
of  time. 

However,  there  are  certain  facts,  about  this  agate-making, 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS.  191 

which  I  can  tell  you;  and  then  you  may  look  at  it  in  a 
pleasant  wonder  as  long  as  you  like;  pleasant  wonder  is  no 
loss  of  time. 

First,  then,  it  is  not  broken  freely  by  a  blow ;  it  is  slowly 
wrung,  or  ground,  to  pieces.  You  can  only  with  extreme 
dimness  conceive  the  force  exerted  on  mountains  in  transi- 
tional states  of  movement.  You  have  all  read  a  little  geo- 
logy;  and  you  know  how  coolly  geologists  talk  of  mountains 
being  raised  or  depressed.  They  talk  coolly  of  it,  because 
they  are  accustomed  to  the  fact ;  but  the  very  universality  of 
the  fact  prevents  us  from  ever  conceiving  distinctly  the  con- 
ditions of  force  involved.  You  know  I  was  liviug  last  year 
in  Savoy;  my  house  was  on  the  back  of  a  sloping  mountain, 
which  rose  gradually  for  two  miles,  behind  it ;  and  then  fell 
at  once  in  a  great  precipice  towards  Geneva,  going  down 
three  thousand  feet  in  four  or  five  cliffs,  or  steps.  Now  that 
whole  group  of  cliffs  had  simply  been  torn  away  by  sheer 
strength  from  the  rocks  below,  as  if  the  whole  mass  had 
been  as  soft  as  biscuit.  Put  four  or  five  captains'  biscuits  on 
the  floor,  on  the  top  of  one  another ;  and  try  to  break  them 
all  in  half,  not  by  bending,  but  by  holding  one  half  down, 
.iii' 1  tearing  the  other  halves  straight  up; — of  course  you  will 
not  be  able  to  do  it,  but  you  will  feel  and  comprehend  the 
sort  of  force  needed.  Then,  fancy  each  captains'  biscuit  a 
bed  of  rock,  six  or  seven  hundred  feet  thick;  and  the  whole 


192  CRYSTAL  SOEEOWS. 

mass  torn  straight  through ;  and  one  half  heaved  up  three 
thousand  feet,  grinding  against  the  other  as  it  rose, — and  you 
t\  ill  have  some  idea  of  the  making  of  the  Mont  Saleve. 

May.  But  it  must  crush  the  rocks  all  to  dust ! 

L.  No ;  for  there  is  no  room  for  dust.  The  pressure  is  too 
great ;  probahly  the  heat  developed  also  so  great  that  the 
rock  is  made  partly  ductile ;  but  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  we 
never  can  see  these  parts  of  mountains  in  the  state  they  were 
left  in  at  the  time  of  their  elevation;  for  it  is  precisely  in 
these  rents  and  dislocations  that  the  crystalline  power  prin- 
cipally exerts  itself.  It  is  essentially  a  styptic  power,  and 
wherever  the  earth  is  torn,  it  heals  and  binds ;  nay,  the 
torture  and  grieving  of  the  earth  seem  necessary  to  bring  out 
its  full  energy  ;  for  you  only  find  the  crystalline  living  power 
Cully  in  action,  where  the  rents  and  faults  are  deep  and  many. 

Dora.  If  you  please,  sir, — would  you  tell  us — what  are 
'faults'? 

L.  You  never  heard  of  such  things  ? 

Dora.  Never  in  all  our  lives. 

L.  When  a  vein  of  rock  which  is  going  on  smoothly,  is 
interrupted  by  another  troublesome  little  vein,  which  stops  it, 
uud  puts  it  out,  so  that  it  has  to  begin  again  in  another  place 
— that  is  called  a  fault.  I  always  think  it  ought  to  be  called 
the  fault  of  the  vein  that  interrupts  it ;  but  the  miners  always 
call  it  the  fault  of  the  vein  that  is  interrupted. 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS.  193 

Dora.  So  it  is,  if  it  does  not  begin  again  where  it  left  off. 

L.  Well,  that  is  certainly  the  gist  of  the  business:  but, 
whatever  good-natured  old  lecturers  may  do,  the  rocks  have 
a  bad  habit,  when  they  are  once  interrupted,  of  never  asking 
'Where  was  I?' 

Dora.  When  the  two  halves  of  the   dining  table  cam 
separate,  yesterday,  was  that  a  '  fault '  ? 

L.  Yes ;  but  not  the  table's.    However,  it  is  not  a  bad 

illustration,  Dora.     When  beds  of  rock  are  only  interrupted 

by  a  fissure,  but  remain  at  the  same  level,  like  the  two  halves 

of  the  table,  it  is  not  called  a  fault,  but  only  a  fissure  ;  but  if 

one  half  of  the  table  be  either  tilted  higher  than  the  other,  or 

pushed  to  the  side,  so  that  the  two  parts  will  not  fit,  it  is  a 

fault.     You  had  better  read  the  chapter  on  faults  in  Jukes's 

Geology ;  then  you  will  know  all  about  it.     And   this  rent 

that  I  am  telling  you  of  in  the  Saleve,  is  one  only  of  myriads, 

to  which  are  owing  the  forms  of  the  Alps,  as,  I  believe,  of  all 

great  mountain  chains.     Wherever  you  see  a  precipice   on 

any  scale  of  real  magnificence,  you  will  nearly  always  find  it 

owing  to  some  dislocation  of  this  kind;  but  the  point  of  chief 

wonder  to  me,  is  the  delicacy  of  the  touch  by  which  these 

gigantic  rents  have  been   apparently  accomplished.      Note, 

however,  that  we  have  no  clear   evidence,  hitherto,  of  the 

time  taken  to  produce  any  of  them.    We  know  that  a  change 

of  temperature   alters   the   position   and   the  angles  of  thw 
9 


194  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

atoms  of  crystals,  and  also  the  entire  bulk  of  rocks.  "We 
know  that  in  all  volcanic,  and  the  greater  part  of  all  subter- 
ranean, action,  temperatures  are  continually  changing,  and 
therefore  masses  of  rock  must  be  expanding  or  contracting, 
with  infinite  slowness,  but  with  infinite  force.  This  pressure 
must  result  in  mechanical  strain  somewhere,  both  in  their 
own  substance,  and  in  that  of  the  rocks  surrounding  them  ; 
and  we  can  form  no  conception  of  the  result  of  irresistible 
pressure,  applied  so  as  to  rend  and  raise,  with  imperceptible 
slowness  of  gradation,  masses  thousands  of  feet  in  thickness. 
We  wrant  some  experiments  tried  on  masses  of  iron  and 
stone ;  and  we  can't  get  them  tried,  because  Christian  crea- 
tures never  will  seriously  and  sufficiently  spend  money, 
except  to  find  out  the  shortest  ways  of  killing  each  other. 
But,  besides  this  slow  kind  of  pressure,  there  is  evidence  of 
more  or  less  sudden  violence,  on  the  same  terrific  scale  ;  and, 
through  it  all,  the  wonder,  as  I  said,  is  always  to  me  the 
delicacy  of  touch.  I  cut  a  block  of  the  Saleve  limestone 
from  the  edge  of  one  of  the  principal  faults  which  have 
formed  the  precipice  ;  it  is  a  lovely  compact  limestone,  and 
he  fault  itself  is  filled  up  with  a  red  breccia,  formed  of  the 
crushed  fragments  of  the  torn  rock,  cemented  by  a  rich  red 
crystalline  paste.  I  have  had  the  piece  I  cut  from  it  smooth- 
ed, and  polished  across  the  junction  ;  here  it  is;  and  you  may 
now  pass  your  soft  little  fingers  over  the  surface,  without  sc 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS.  19 b 

much  as  feeling  the  place  where  a  rock  which  all  the  hills  o.f 
England  might  have  been  sunk  in  the  body  of,  and  not  a 
summit  seen,  was  torn  asunder  through  that  whole  thickness, 
as  a  thin  dress  is  torn  when  you  tread  upon  it. 

(The  audience  examine  the  stone,  and  touch  it  timidly , 
but  the  matter  remains  inconceivable  to  them.) 

Mart  {struck  by  the  beauty  of  the  stone).     But  this  is 
almost  marble  ? 

L.  It  is  quite  marble.  And  another  singular  point  in  the 
business,  to  my  mind,  is  that  these  stones,  which  men  have 
been  cutting  into  slabs,  for  thousands  of  years,  to  ornament 
their  principal  buildings  with, — and  which,  under  the  general 
name  of  '  marble,'  have  been  the  delight  of  the  eyes,  and  the 
wealth  of  architecture,  among  all  civilised  nations, — are  pre- 
cisely those  on  which  the  signs  and  brands  of  these  earth 
agonies  have  been  chiefly  struck ;  and  there  is  not  a  purple 
vein  nor  flaming  zone  in  them,  which  is  not  the  record  of 
their  ancient  torture.  What  a  boundless  capacity  for  sleep, 
and  for  serene  stupidity,  there  is  in  the  human  mind  !  Fancy 
reflective  beings,  who  cut  and  polish  stones  for  three  thousand 
years,  for  the  sake  of  the  pretty  stains  upon  them;  and 
educate  themselves  to  an  art  at  last  (such  as  it  is),  oi 
imitating  these  veins  by  dexterous  painting;  and  never  a 
curious  soul  of  them,  all  that  while,  asks,  '  What  painted  th« 
recks?' 


196  CRYSTAL  SORROWS. 

(The  audience  look  dejected,  and  ashamed  of  then- 
selves.) 
The  fact  is,  we  are  all,  and  always,  asleep,  through  our 
lives ;  and  it  is  only  by  pinching  ourselves  very  hard  that  we 
ever  come  to  see,  or  understand,  anything.  At  least,  it  is  not 
always  we  who  pinch  ourselves;  sometimes  other  peopk 
pinch  us ;  which  I  suppose  is  very  good  of  them, — or  other 
things,  which  I  suppose  is  very  proper  of  them.  But  it  is 
a  sad  life ;  made  up  chiefly  of  naps  and  pinches. 

(Some  of  the  audience,  on  this,  appearing  to  think  that 
the  others  require  pinching,  the  Lecturer  changes  the, 
subject.) 
Now,  however,  for  once,  look  at  a  piece  of  marble  care- 
fully, and  think  about  it.  You  see  this  is  one  side  of  the 
fault ;  the  other  side  is  down  or  up,  nobody  knows  where ; 
but,  on  this  side,  you  can  trace  the  evidence  of  the  dragging 
and  tearing  action.  All  along  the  edge  of  this  marble,  the 
ends  of  the  fibres  of  the  rock  are  torn,  here  an  inch,  and  there 
half  an  inch,  away  from  each  other ;  and  you  see  the  exact 
places  where  they  fitted,  before  they  were  torn  separate ;  and 
you  see  the  rents  are  now  all  filled  up  with  the  sanguine  paste, 
full  of  the  broken  pieces  of  the  rock ;  the  paste  itself 
seems  to  have  been  half  melted,  and  partly  to  have  also 
melted  the  edge  of  the  fragments  it  contains,  and  then  to  have 
crystallised  with  them,  and  round  them.    And  the  brecciated 


CRYSTAL   SOEROWS.  197 

agate  I  first  showed  you  contains  exactly  the  same  pheno- 
mena; l,  zoned  crystallisation  going  on  amidst  the  cemented 
fragments,  partly  altering  the  structure  of  those  fragments 
themselves,  and  subject  to  continual  change,  either  in  the 
intensity  of  its  own  power,  or  in  the  nature  of  the  materials 
submitted  to  it; — so  that,  at  one  time,  gravity  acts  upon 
tliem,  and  disposes  them  in  horizontal  layers,  or  causes  them 
to  droop  in  stalactites ;  and  at  another,  gravity  is  entirely 
defied,  and  the  substances  in  solution  are  crystallised  in 
bands  of  equal  thickness  on  every  side  of  the  cell.  It  would 
require  a  course  of  lectures  longer  than  these  (I  have  a  great 
mind, — you  have  behaved  so  saucily — to  stay  and  give 
them)  to  describe  to  you  the  phenomena  of  this  kind,  in 
agates  and  chalcedonies  only  ; — nay,  there  is  a  single  sarco- 
phagus in  the  British  Museum,  covered  with  grand  sculpture 
of  the  18th  dynasty,  which  contains  in  the  magnificent 
breccia  (agates  and  jaspers  imbedded  in  porphyry),  out 
of  which  it  is  hewn,  material  for  the  thuught  of  years  ;  and 
record  of  the  earth-sorrow  of  ages  in  comparison  with  the 
duration  of  which,  the  Egyptian  letters  tell  us  but  the  history 
of  the  evening  and  morning  of  a  day. 

Agates,  I  think,  of  all  stones,  confess  most  ot  their  past 
history;  but  all  crystallisation  goes  on  under,  and  partly 
records,  circumstances  of  this  kind — circumstances  of  infi- 
nite variety,  but  always  involving  difficulty,  interruption,  ant? 


1(J8  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

change  of  condition  at  different  times.  Observe,  first,  you 
have  the  whole  mass  of  the  rock  in  motion,  either  contracting 
itself,  and  so  gradually  widening  the  cracks ;  or  being 
compressed,  and  thereby  closing  them,  and  crushing  thei<* 
edges  ; — and,  if  one  part  of  its  substance  be  softer,  at  the 
given  temperature,  than  another,  probably  squeezing  that 
softer  substance  out  into  the  veins.  Then  the  veins  them- 
selves, Avhen  the  rock  leaves  them  open  by  its  contraction, 
act  with  various  power  of  suction  upon  its  substance ; — by 
capillary  attraction  when  they  are  fine, — by  that  of  pure 
vacuity  when  they  are  larger,  or  by  changes  in  the  consti- 
tution and  condensation  of  the  mixed  gases  with  which 
they  have  been  originally  filled.  Those  gases  themselves 
may  be  supplied  in  all  variation  of  volume  and  power  from 
below;  or,  slowly,  by  the  decomposition  of  the  rocks  them- 
selves ;  and,  at  changing  temneratures,  must  exert  relatively 
changing  forces  of  decomposition  and  combination  on  the 
walls  of  the  veins  they  fill ;  while  water,  at  every  degree  of 
heat  and  pressure  (from  beds  of  everlasting  ice,  alternate 
with  cliffs  of  native  rock,  to  volumes  of  red  hot,  or  white 
hot,  steam),  congeals,  and  drips,  and  throbs,  and  thrills,  from 
crag  to  crag;  and  breathes  from  pulse  to  pulse  of  foaming 
or  fiery  arteries,  whose  beating  is  felt  through  chains  of  lbs 
great  islands  of  the  Indian,  seas,  as  your  own  pulses  lift  youi 
bracelets,  and  makes  whole  kingdoms  of  the  world  quivei 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS.  199 

in  deadly  earthquake,  as  if  they  were  light  as  aspen  leaves 
And,  remember,  the  poor  little  crystals  have  to  live  theii 
lives,  and  mind  their  own  affairs,  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  a* 
best  they  may.  They  are  wonderfully  like  human  creatures, 
— forget  all  that  is  going  on  if  they  don't  see  it,  however 
dreadful;  and  never  think  what  is  to  happen  to-morrow 
They  are  spiteful  or  loving,  and  indolent  or  painstaking,  and 
orderly  or  licentious,  with  no  thought  whatever  of  the  lava 
or  the  flood  which  may  break  over  them  any  day ;  and  evapo- 
rate them  into  air-bubbles,  or  wash  them  into  a  solution  of 
salts.  And  you  may  look  at  them,  once  understanding  the 
surrounding  conditions  of  their  fate,  with  an  endless  interest. 
You  will  see  crowds  of  unfortunate  little  crystals,  who  Lave 
been  forced  to  constitute  themselves  in  a  hurry,  their 
dissolving  element  being  fiercely  scorched  away ;  you  will 
see  them  doing  their  best,  bright  and  numberless,  but  tiny. 
Then  you  will  find  indulged  crystals,  who  have  had  centuries 
to  form  themselves  in,  and  have  changed  their  mind  and 
ways  continually;  and  have  been  tired,  and  taken  heart 
again;  and  have  been  sick,  and  got  well  again;  and  thought 
they  would  try  a  different  diet,  and  then  thought  better  of 
it ;  and  made  but  a  poor  use  of  their  advantages,  after  all. 
And  others  you  will  see,  who  have  begun  life  as  wicked 
crystals;  and  then  have  been  impressed  by  alarming  cireum- 
stances,  and  have  become  converted  crystals,  and  behaved 


200  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

amazingly  for  a  little  while,  and  fallen  away  again,  ar.  1 
ended,  but  discreditably,  perhaps  even  in  decomposition  ; 
so  that  one  doesn't  know  what  will  become  of  them.  And 
sometimes  you  will  see  deceitful  crystals,  that  look  as  soft 
as  velvet,  and  are  deadly  to  all  near  them ;  and  sometimes 
you  will  see  deceitful  crystals,  that  seem  flint-edged,  like  oui 
little  quartz-crystal  of  a  housekeeper  here,  (hush !  Dora,) 
and  are  endlessly  gentle  and  true  wherever  gentleness  and 
truth  are  needed.  And  sometimes  you  will  see  little  child- 
crystals  put  to  school  like  school-girls,  and  made  to  stand  in 
rows  ;  and  taken  the  greatest  care  of,  and  taught  how  to 
hold  themselves  up,  and  behave :  and  sometimes  you  will 
see  unhappy  little  child-crystals  left  to  lie  about  in  the  dirt, 
and  pick  up  their  living,  and  learn  manners,  where  they  can. 
And  sometimes  you  will  see  fat  crystals  eating  up  thin  ones, 
like  great  capitalists  and  little  labourers  ;  and  politico- 
economic  crystals  teaching  the  stupid  ones  how  to  eat  each 
other,  and  cheat  each  other;  and  foolish  crystals  getting  in 
the  way  of  wise  ones ;  and  impatient  crystals  spoiling  the 
plans  of  patient  ones,  irreparably ;  just  as  things  go  on  in  the 
world.  And  sometimes  you  may  see  hypocritical  crystals 
taking  the  shape  of  others,  though  they  are  nothing  like  in 
their  minds  ;  and  vampire  crystals  eating  out  the  hearts  of 
others;  and  hermit-crab  crystals  living  in  the  shells  of  othe-s ; 
and   parasite   crystals   living  on  the  means  of  others ;   and 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS.  201 

courtier  crystals  glittering  in  attendance  upon  others  ;  and 
all  these,  besides  the  two  great  companies  of  war  and  peace, 
who  ally  themselves,  resolutely  to  attack,  or  resolutely  to 
defend.  And  for  the  close,  you  see  the  broad  shadow  and 
deadly  force  of  inevitable  fote,  above  all  this :  you  see  the 
multitudes  of  crystals  whose  time  has  come ;  not  a  set  time, 
as  with  us,  but  yet  a  time,  sooner  or  later,  when  they 
all  must  give  up  their  crystal  ghosts : — when  the  strength  by 
which  they  grew,  and  the  breath  given  them  to  breathe,  pass 
away  from  them;  and  they  fail,  and  are  consumed,  and 
Vanish  away;  and  another  generation  is  brought  to  life, 
framed  out  of  their  ashes. 

Mary.  It  is  very  terrible.  Is  it  not  the  complete  fulfilment, 
down  into  the  very  dust,  of  that  verse  :  '  The  whole  creation 
groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain'? 

L.  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  in  pain,  Mary :  at  least,  the 
evidence  tends  to  show  that  there  is  much  more  pleasure 
than  pain,  as  soon  as  sensation  becomes  possible. 

Litcilla.  But  then,  surely,  if  we  are  told  that  it  is  pain, 
it  must  be  pain  ? 

L.  Yes ;  if  we  are  told ;  and  told  in  the  way  you  mean, 

Lucilla;  but  nothing  is  said  of  the  proportion  to  pleasure. 

Unmitigated  pain  would  kdl  any  of  us  in  a  few  hours ;  pain 

equal  to  our  pleasures  would  make  us  loathe  life  ;  the  word 

itself  cannot  be  applied  to  the  lower  conditions  of  matter 

9* 


202  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

hi  its  ordinary  sense.  But  wait  till  to-morrow  to  asx  me 
about  this.  To-morrow  is  to  be  kept  for  questions  and 
difficulties;  let  us  keep  to  the  plain  facts  to-day.  There  ia 
yet  one  group  of  facts  connected  with  this  rending  of  the 
rocks,  which  I  especially  want  you  to  notice.  You  know, 
when  you  have  mended  a  very  old  dress,  quite  meritoriously, 
till  it  won't  mend  any  more 

Egypt  {interrupting).  Could  not  you  sometimes  take  gen- 
tlemen's work  to  illustrate  by? 

L.  Gentlemen's  work  is  rarely  so  useful  as  yours,  Egypt ; 
and  when  it  is  useful,  girls  cannot  easily  understand  it. 

Dora.  I  am  sure  we  should  understand  it  better  than 
gentlemen  understand  about  sewing. 

L.  My  dear,  I  hope  I  always  speak  modestly,  and  under 
correction,  when  I  touch  upon  matters  of  the  kind  too  high 
for  me ;  and  besides,  I  never  intend  to  speak  otherwise  than 
respectfully  of  sewing; — though  you  always  seem  to  think 
I  am  laughing  at  you.  In  all  seriousness,  illustrations  from 
sewing  are  those  which  Neith  likes  me  best  to  use  ;  and 
which  young  ladies  ought  to  like  everybody  to  use.  What 
do  you  think  the  beautiful  word  '  wife'  comes  from? 

Dora  (tossing  her  head).  I  don't  think  it  is  a  particularly 
beautiful  word. 

L.  Perhaps  not.  At  your  ages  you  may  think  'bride' 
sounds  better;  but  wife's  the  word  for  wear,  depend  upon 


CRYSTAL    SORROWS.  203 

it.  It  is  the  great  word  in  which  the  English  and  Latin 
languages  conquer  the  French  and  the  Greek.  I  hope  the 
French  will  some  day  get  a  word  for  it,  yet,  instead  of  then 
dreadful  'femme.'     But  what  do  you  think  it  comes  from? 

Dora.  I  never  did  think  about  it? 

L.  Nor  you,  Sibyl  ? 

Sibyl.  No  ;  I  thought  it  was  Saxon,  and  stopped  there. 

L.  Yes ;  but  the  great  good  of  Saxon  words  is,  that  they 
usually  do  mean  something.  Wife  means  '  weaver.'  You 
have  all  the  right  to  call  yourselves  little  '  housewives,'  when 
you  sew  neatly. 

Dora.  But  I  don't  think  we  want  to  call  ourselves  'little 
housewives.' 

L.  You  must  either  be  house- Wives,  or  house-Moths ; 
remember  that.  In  the  deep  sense,  you  must  either  weave 
men's  fortunes,  and  embroider  them;  or  feed  upon,  and  bring 
them  to  decay.  You  had  better  let  me  keep  my  sewing 
illustration,  and  help  ine  out  with  it. 

Dora.  Well,  we'll  hear  it,  under  protest. 

L.  You  have  heard  it  before ;  but  with  reference  to  othei 
matters.  When  it  is  said,  '  no  man  putteth  a  piece  of  new 
cloth  on  an  old  garment,  else  it  taketh  from  the  old,'  does 
it  not  mean  that  the  new  piece  tears  the  old  one  away  at  the 
sewn  edge  ? 

Dora.  Yes;  certainly. 


204  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

L.  And  when  you  mend  a  decayed  stuff  with  strong  thread, 
does  not  the  whole  edge  come  away  sometimes,  when  it  tears 
again? 

Dora.  Yes;  and  then  it  is  of  no  use  to  mend  it  any 
more. 

L.  Well,  the  rocks  don't  seem  to  think  that :  but  the  same 
thing  happens  to  them  continually.  I  told  you  they  were 
full  of  rents,  or  veins.  Large  masses  of  mountain  are  some- 
times as  full  of  veins  as  your  hand  is ;  and  of  veins  nearly  as 
fine  (only  you  know  a  rock  vein  does  not  mean  a  tube,  but 
a  crack  or  cleft).  Now  these  clefts  are  mended,  usually,  with 
the  strongest  material  the  rock  can  find ;  and  often  literally 
with  threads ;  for  the  gradually  opening  rent  seems  to  draw 
the  substance  it  is  filled  with  into  fibres,  which  cross  from 
one  side  of  it  to  the  other,  and  are  partly  crystalline;  so  that, 
when  the  crystals  become  distinct,  the  fissure  has  often 
exactly  the  look  of  a  tear,  brought  together  with  strong  cross 
stitches.  Now  when  this  is  completely  done,  and  all  has  been 
fastened  and  made  firm,  perhaps  some  new  change  of  tem- 
perature may  occur,  and  the  rock  begin  to  contract  again. 
Then  the  old  vein  must  open  wider;  or  else  another  open 
elsewhere.  If  the  old  vein  wTiden,  it  may  do  so  at  its  centre; 
but  it  constantly  happens,  with  well  filled  veins,  that  the 
cross  stitches  are  too  strong  to  break  ;  the  walls  of  the  vein, 
instead,  are  torn  away  by  them;  and  another  little  supple 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS.  205 

.  mentary  vein — often  three  or  four  successively — will  le  thus 
formed  at  the  side  of  the  first. 

Mary.  That  is  really  very  much  like  our  work.  Bat  what 
do  the  mountains  use  to  sew  with  ? 

L.  Quartz,  whenever  they  can  get  it :  pure  limestones  are 
obliged  to  be  content  with  carbonate  of  lime;  but  most 
mixed  rocks  can  find  some  quartz  for  themselves.  Here  is  a 
piece  of  black  slate  from  the  Buet :  it  looks  merely  like  dry 
dark  mud ; — you  could  not  think  there  was  any  quartz  in  it ; 
but,  you  see,  its  rents  are  all  stitched  together  with  beautiful 
white  thread,  which  is  the  purest  quartz,  so  close  drawn  that 
you  can  break  it  like  flint,  in  the  mass ;  but,  where  it  has 
been  exposed  to  the  weather,  the  fine  fibrous  structure  is 
shown :  and,  more  than  that,  you  see  the  threads  have  been 
all  twisted  and  pulled  aside,  this  way  and  the  other,  by 
the  warpings  and  shifting  of  the  sides  of  the  vein  as  it 
widened. 

Mary.  It  is  wonderful !  But  is  that  going  on  still  ?  Are 
the  mountains  being  torn  and  sewn  together  again  at  this 
moment  ? 

L.  Yes,  certainly,  my  dear :  but  I  think,  just  as  certainly 
(though  geologists  differ  on  this  matter),  not  with  the 
violence,  or  on  the  scale,  of  their  ancient  ruin  and  renewal. 
All  things  seem  to  be  tending  towards  a  condition  of  at  leasl 
temporary  rest ;    and  that  groaning  and   travailing  of  tlw 


206  CRYSTAL   SORROWS. 

creation,  as,  assuredly,  not  wholly  in  pain,  is  not,  in  the  full 
sense,  '  until  now.' 

Mary    I  want  so  much  to  ask  you  about  that ! 

Sibyl.  Yes ;  and  we  all  want  to  ask  you  about  a  great 
many  other  things  besides. 

L.  It  seems  to  me  that  you  have  got  quite  as  many  new 
ideas  as  are  good  for  any  of  you  at  present:  and  I  should 
not  like  to  burden  you  with  more;  but  I  must  see  that 
those  you  have  are  clear,  if  I  can  make  them  so;  so  we 
will  have  one  more  talk,  for  answer  of  questions,  mainly, 
Think  over  all  the  ground,  and  make  your  difficulties  tho- 
roughly presentable.  Then  we'll  see  what  we  can  make  of 
them. 

Dora.  They  shall  all  be  dressed  in  their  very  best;  and 
curtsey  as  they  come  in. 

L.  Xo,  no,  Dora ;  no  curtseys,  if  you  please.  I  had 
enough  of  them  the  day  you  all  took  a  fit  of  reverence,  and 
curtsied  me  out  of  the  room. 

Dori.  But,  you  know,  we  cured  ourselves  of  the  fault, 
at  once,  by  that  fit.  We  have  never  been  the  least  respect- 
ful since.  And  the  difficulties  will  only  curtsey  themselves 
out  of  the  room,  I  hope ; — come  in  at  one  door — vanish  at 
the  other. 

L.  What  a  pleasant  world  it  would  be,  if  all  its  difficulties 
were  taught  to   behave   so !     However,  one   can  generally 


CRYSTAL   SORROWS  201 

make  something,  or  (better  still)  nothing,  or  at  least  less, 
of  them,  if  they  thoroughly  know  their  own  minds;  and 
your  difficulties — I  must  say  that  for  you,  children, — 
generally  do  know  their  own  minds,  as  you  do  yourselves. 

Dora.  That  is  very  kindly  said  for  us.  Some  people 
would  not  allow  so  much  as  that' girls  had  any  minds  to 
know. 

L.  They  will  at  least  admit  that  you  have  minds  to 
change,  Dora. 

Mart.  You  might  have  left  us  tne  last  speech,  without 
a  retouch.  But  we'll  put  our  little  minds,  such  as  they  are, 
ill  the  best  trim  we  can,  for  to-morrow. 


£tttnn  10. 
THE  CRYSTAL  REST. 


LECTURE  X. 

TEE  CRYSTAL  REST. 

m 

Evening.     The  fireside.    L.'s  arm-chair  in  the  comfortablest 

corner. 

L.  {perceiving  various  arrangements  being  made  of  foot 
ttool,  cushion,  screen,  and  the  like.)  Yes,  yes,  it's  all  very 
fine !  and  I  am  to  sit  here  to  be  asked  questions  till  supper- 
time,  am  I  ? 

Dora.  I  don't  think  you  can  have  any  supper  to-night: 
— we've  got  so  much  to  ask. 

Lily.  Oh,  Miss  Dora!  We  can  fetch  it  him  here,  you 
know,  so  nicely ! 

L.  Yes,  Lily,  that  will  be  pleasant,  with  competitive 
examination  going  oh  over  one's  plate;  the  competition 
being  among  the  examiners.  Really,  now  that  I  know 
what  teasing  things  girls  are,  I  don't  so  much  wonder 
that  people  used  to  put  up  patiently  with  the  dragons  who 
took  them  for  supper.  But  I  can't  help  myself,  I  suppose  ; 
— no  thanks  to  St.  George.  Ask  away,  children,  and  I'll 
answer  as  civilly  as  may  be. 


212  THE    CRYSTAL    REST. 

I)3ka.  We  don't  so  much  care  about  being  answered 
civilly,  as  about  not  being  asked  things  back  again. 

L.  '  Ayez  seulement  la  patience  que  je  le  parlo.'  There 
shall  be  no  requitals.  • 

Dora.  Well,  then,  first  of  all — What  shall  we  ask  first, 
Mary  ? 

Mary.  Jt  does  not  matter.  I  think  all  the  questions 
come  into  *one,  at  last,  nearly. 

Dora.  You  know,  you  always  talk  as  if  the  crystals 
were  alive;  and  we  never  understand  how  much  you  are 
in  play,  and  how  much  in  earnest.     That's  the  first  thing. 

L.  Neither  do  I  understand,  myself,  my  dear,  how  much 
I  am  in  earnest.  The  stones  puzzle  me  as  much  as  I  puzzle 
you.  They  look  as  if  they  were  alive,  and  make  me  speak 
as  if  they  were;  and  I  do  not  in  the  least  know  how  much 
truth  there  is  in  the  appearance.  I'm  not  to  ask  things 
back  again  to-night,  but  all  questions  of  this  sort  lead 
necessarily  to  the  one  main  question,  which  we  asked, 
before,  in  vain,  '  What  is  it  to  be  alive  ?'* 

Dora.  Yes;  but  Ave  want  to  come  back  to  that:  foi 
we've  been  reading  scientific  books  about  the  '  conservation 
of  forces,'  and  it  seems  all  so  grand,  and  wonderful ;  and 
the  experiments  are  so  pretty;  an  J  I  suppose  it  must  bo 
all  right:  but  then  the  books  never  speak  as  if  there  were 
any  such  thing  as  '  life.' 


THE   CRYSTAL    REST.  213 

L.  They  mostly  omit  that  part  of  the  subject,  certainly, 
Dor;i ;  but.  they  are  beautifully  right  as  far  as  they  go  ;  and 
life  is  not  a  convenient  element  to  deal  with.  They  seem  to 
ha\e  been  getting  some  of  it  into  and  out  of  bottles,  in  their 
'ozone'  and  'antizone'  lately;  but  they  still  know  little  of 
it :  and,  certainly,  I  know  less. 

Dora.  You  promised  not  to  be  provoking,  to-night. 

L.  Wait  a  minute.  Though,  quite  truly,  I  know  less  of  the 
secrets  of  life  than  the  philosophers  do ;  I  yet  know  one 
corner  of  ground  on  which  we  artists  can  stand,  literally  as 
'Life  Guards '  at  bay,  as  steadily  as  the  Guards  at  Inkennann  ; 
however  hard  the  philosophers  push.  And  you  may  stand 
with  us,  if  once  you  learn  to  draw  nicely. 

Dora.  I'm  sure  we  are  all  trying!  but  tell  us  where  wt 
may  stand. 

L.  You  may  always  stand  by  Form,  against  Force.  To  t 
painter,  the  essential  character  of  anything  is  the  form  of  it 
and  the  philosophers  cannot  touch  that.  They  come  and  tell 
you,  for  instance,  that  there  is  as  much  heat,  or  motion,  01 
calorific  energy  (or  whatever  else  they  like  to  call  it),  in  a  tea 
kettle  as  in  a  Gier-eagle.  Very  good;  that  is  so;  and  it  is 
very  interesting.  It  requires  just  as  much  heat  as  will  boil 
the  kettle,  to  take  the  Gier-eagle  up  to  his  nest ;  and  as  much 
more  to  bring  him  down  again  on  a  hare  or  a  partridge. 
Hut  we  painters,  acknowledging  the  equality  and  similarity 


214  THE    CRTSTx\L    REST. 

of  the  kettle  and  tlie  bird  in  all  scientific  respects,  attach, 
for  our  part,  our  principal  interest  to  the  difference  in  theii 
forms.  For  us,  the  primarily  cognisable  facts,  in  the  two 
things,  are,  that  the  kettle  has  a  spout,  and  the  eagle  a  beak ; 
the  one  a  lid  on  its  back,  the  other  a  pair  of  wings ; — not  to 
speak  of  the  distinction  also  of  volition,  which  the  philoso- 
phers may  properly  call  merely  a  form  or  mode  of  force  ; — 
but  then,  to  an  artist,  the  form,  or  mode,  is  the  gist  of  the 
business.  The  kettle  chooses  to  sit  still  on  the  hob ;  the 
eagle  to  recline  on  the  air.  It  is  the  fact  of  the  choice,  not 
the  equal  degree  of  temperature  in  the  fulfilment  of  it,  which 
appears  to  us  the  more  interesting  circumstance; — though 
the  other  is  very  interesting  too.  Exceedingly  so  !  Don't 
laugh,  children ;  the  philosophers  have  been  doing  quite 
Bplendid  work  lately,  in  their  own  way :  especially,  the  trans- 
formation of  force  into  light  is  a  great  piece  of  systematised 
discovery  ;  and  this  notion  about  the  sun's  being  supplied 
with  his  flame  by  ceaseless  meteoric  hail  is  grand,  and  looks 
very  likely  to  be  true.  Of  course,  it  is  only  the  old  gun 
lock, — flint  and  steel, — on  a  large  scale  :  but  the  order  and 
majesty  of  it  are  sublime.  Still,  we  sculptors  and  r  abaters 
care  little  about  it.  •  It  is  very  fine,'  we  say,  '  and  very  useful, 
this  knocking  the  light  out  of  the  sun,  or  into  it,  by  an  eter 
nal  cataract  of  planets.  But  you  may  hail  away,  so,  for  ever, 
and  you  will  not  knock  out  what  we  can.     Here  is  a  bit  of 


THE    CRYSTAL    REST.  216 

0 
Bilver,  not  the  size  of  half-a- crown,  on  which,  with  a  single 

hammer  stroke,  one  of  us,  two  thousand  and  odd  years  ago, 

hit  out  the  head  of  the  Apollo  of  Clazomenas.     It  is  merely  a 

matter  of  form ;  but  if  any  of  you  philosophers,  with  your 

whole  planetary  system  to  hammer  with,  can  hit  out  such 

another  bit  of  silver  as  this, — we  will  take  off  our  hats  to 

you.     For  the  present,  we  keep  them  on.' 

Mart.  Yes,  I  understand  ;  and  that  is  nice  ;  but  I  don't 
think  we  shall  any  of  us  like  having  only  form  to  depend  upon. 

L.  It  was  not  neglected  in  the  making  of  Eve,  my  dear. 

Mary.  It  does  not  seem  to  separate  us  from  the  dust  of  the 
ground.  It  is  that  breathing  of  the  life  which  we  want  to 
understand. 

L.  So  you  should :  but  hold  fast  to  the  form,  and  defend 
that  first,  as  distinguished  from  the  mere  transition  of  forces. 
Discern  the  moulding  hand  of  the  potter  commanding  the 
clay,  from  his  merely  beating  foot,  as  it  turns  the  wheel.  If 
you  can  find  incense,  in  the  vase,  afterwards, — well :  but  it  is 
curious  how  far  mere  form  will  carry  you  ahead  of  the  philo- 
sophers. For  instance,  with  regard  to  the  most  interesting 
of  all  their  modes  of  force — light ; — they  never  consider  how 
far  the  existence  of  it  depends  on  the  putting  of  certain 
vitreous  and  nervo\is  substances  into  the  formal  arrangement 
which  we  call  an  eye.  The  German  philosophers  began  the 
attack,  long  ago,  on  the  other  side,  by  telling  us,  there  was 


21 G  TIIE   CRYSTAL   REST. 

no  such  thing  as  light  at  all,  unless  we  chose  to  see  it:  new, 
German  and  English,  both,  have  revei'sed  their  engines,  and 
insist  that  light  would  be  exactly  the  same  light  that  it  is, 
though  nobody  could  ever  see  it.  The  fact  being  that  fhe 
force  must  be  there,  and  the  eyes  there ;  and  '  light'  means 
the  effect  of  the  one  on  the  other; — and  perhaps,  also — (Plato 
saw  farther  into  that  mystery  than  any  one  has  since,  that  I 
know  of), — on  something  a  little  way  within  the  eyes  ;  but  we 
may  stand  quite  safe,  close  behind  the  retina,  and  defy  the 
philosophers, 

Sibyl.  But  I  don't  care  so  much  about  defying  the  philoso- 
phers, if  only  one  could  get  a  clear  idea  of  life,  or  soul,  for 
one's  self. 

L.  AY  ell,  Sibyl,  you  used  to  know  more  about  it,  in  that 
cave  of  yours,  than  any  of  us.  I  was  just  going  to  ask  you 
about  inspiration,  and  the  golden  bough,  and  the  like ;  only  I 
remembered  I  was  not  to  ask  anything.  But,  will  not  you, 
at  least,  tell  us  whether  the  ideas  of  Life,  as  the  power  of 
putting  things  together,  or  '  making'  them  ;  and  of  Death,  as 
the  power  of  pushing  things  separate,  or  '  unmaking '  them, 
may  not  be  vei'y  simply  held  in  balance  against  each  other  ? 

Sibyl.  No,  I  am  not  in  my  cave  to-night ;  and  cannot  tell  > 
you  anything. 

L.  I  think  they  may.  Modern  Philosophy  is  a  great  sepa- 
rator ;  it  is  little  more  than  the  expansion  of  Moliere's  great 


THE   CRYSTAL  BEST.  217 

sentence,  '  II  s'ensuit  de  la,  que  tout  ce  qu'il  y  a  de  beau  est 
dans  lcr=(  dictionnaires ;  il  n'y  a  que  les  mots  qui  sont  trans 
poses.'  But  when  you  used  to  be  in  your  cave,  Sibyl,  and  tc 
be  inspired,  there  was  (and  there  remains  still  in  some  small 
measure),  beyond  the  merely  formative  and  sustaining  power, 
another,  which  we  painters  call  'passion  ' — I  don't  know  what 
the  philosophers  call  it ;  we  know  it  makes  people  red,  or 
white;  and  therefore  it  must  be  something,  itself ;  and  per- 
haps it  is  the  most  truly  '  poetic '  or  '  making '  force  of  all, 
creating  a  world  of  its  own  out  of  a  glance,  or  a  sigh :  and 
the  want  of  passion  is  perhaps  the  truest  death,  or  '  unmaking ' 
of  every  tiling  ; — even  of  stones.  By  the  way,  you  were  all 
reading  about  that  asoent  of  the  Aiguiile  Verte,  the  other 
day  ? 

Syetl.  Because  you  hr.d  told  us  it  was  so  difficult,  you 
thought  it  could  not  be  ase.-nded. 

L.  Yes ;  I  believed  the  Aiguille  Verte  would  have  held 
its  own.  But  do  you  recollect  what  one  of  the  climbers 
exclaimed,  when  he  first  felt  tfure  of  reaching  the  summit. 

Sybil.  Yes,  it  was,  '  Oh,  Aiguille  Verte,  vous  etes  morte, 
vous  etes  morte ! ' 

L.  That  was  true  instinct      Real   philosophic  joy.      Now 

can  you  at  all  fancy  the  difference  between  that  feeling  of 

triumph  in  a  mountain's  death  ;  and  the  e.vultatior    of  youl 

beloved  poet,  in  its  life — 

10 


218  THE   CRYSTAL   REST. 

'  Quantus  Athos,  aut  quantus  Eryx,  aut  if  se  c^ruscis 
Quum  fremit  ilicibus  quantus,  gaudetque  nivali 
Vertice,  se  attollens  pater  Apenninus  ad  auras.' 

Dora.  You  must  translate  for  us  mere  house-keepers,  please 
•—whatever  the  cave-keepers  may  know  about  it. 

Mary.  Will  Dryden  do  ? 

L.  No.  Dryden  is  a  far  "way  worse  than  nothing,  anc* 
nobody  will  'do.'  You  can't  translate  it.  But  this  is  all 
you  need  know,  that  the  lines  are  full  of  a  passionate  sense 
of  the  Apennines'  fatherhood,  or  protecting  power  over  Italy ; 
and  of  sympathy  with  their  joy  in  their  snowy  strength  in 
heaven ;  and  with  the  same  joy,  shuddering  through  all  the 
leaves  of  their  forests. 

Mary.  Yes,  that  is  a  difference  indeed!  but  then,  you 
know,  one  can't  help  feeling  that  it  is  fanciful.  It  is  very 
delightful  to  imagine  the  mountains  to  be  alive  ;  but  then,— 
are  they  alive? 

L.  It  seems  to  me,  on  the  whole,  Mary,  that  the  feelings 
of  the  purest  and  most  mightily  passioned  human  souls  are 
likely  to  be  the  truest.  Not,  indeed,  if  they  do  not  desire  to 
know  the  truth,  or  blind  themselves  to  it  that  they  may 
please  themselves  with  passion  ;  for  then  they  are  no  longer 
pure :  but  if,  continually  seeking  and  accepting  the  truth  as 
far  as  it  is  discernible,  they  trust  their  Maker  for  the  integrity 


THE    CRYSTAL    REST.  219 

of  the  instincts  He  has  gifted  them  will:,  and  rest  in  the 
sense  of  a  higher  truth  which  they  cannot  demonstrate,  1 
think  they  will  be  most  in  the  right,  so. 

Dora  and  Jessie  {clapping  their  hands).  Then  we  really 
may  believe  that  the  mountains  are  living  ? 

L.  You  may  at  least  earnestly  believe,  that  the  presence 
of  the  spirit  which  culminates  in  your  own  life,  shows  itself 
in  dawning,  wherever  the  dust  of  the  earth  begins  to 
assume  any  orderly  and  lovely  state.  You  will  find  it  impos- 
sible to  separate  this  idea  of  gradated  manifestation  from 
that  of  the  vital  power.  Things  are  not  either  wholly  alive,  or 
wholly  dead.  They  are  less  or  more  alive.  Take  the  nearest, 
most  easily  examined  instance — the  life  of  a  flower.  Notice 
what  a  different  degree  and  kind  of  life  there  is  in  the  calyx 
and  the  corolla.  The  calyx  is  nothing  but  the  swaddling 
clothes  of  the  flower;  the  child-blossom  is  bound  up  in  it, 
hand  and  foot ;  guarded  in  it,  restrained  by  it,  till  the 
time  of  birth.  The  shell  is  hardly  more  subordinate  to 
the  germ  in  the  eggt  than  the  calyx  to  the  blossom.  It 
bursts  at  last ;  but  it  never  lives  as  the  corolla  does.  It  may 
fall  at  the  moment  its  task  is  fulfilled,  as  in  the  poppy ;  or 
wither  gradually,  as  in  the  buttercup  ;  or  persist  in  a  ligneous 
apathy,  after  the  flower  is  dead,  as  in  the  rose  ;  or  harmonise 
itself  so  as  to  share  in  the  aspect  of  the  real  flower,  as  in  the 
lily;    but  it    never  shares   in    the   corolla's  bright  passion 


220  THE   CRYSTAL   REST. 

of  life.  And  the  gradations  which  thus  exist  between  the 
different  members  of  organic  creatures,  exist  no  less  be- 
tween the  different  ranges  of  organism.  We  know  no  higher 
or  more  energetic  life  than  our  own;  but  there  seems  to 
me  this  great  good  in  the  idea  of  gradation  of  life — it 
admits  the  idea  of  a  life  above  us,  in  other  creatures, 
as  much  nobler  than  ours,  as  ours  is  nobler  than  that  of  the 
dust. 

Mart.  1  am  glad  you  have  said  that;  for  I  know  Violet 
and  Lucilla  and  May  want  to  ask  you  something ;  indeed, 
we  all  do;  only  you  frightened  Violet  so  about  the  ant- 
hill, that  she  can't  say  a  word  ;  and  May  is  afraid  of  your 
teasing  her,  too:  but  I  know  they  are  wondering  why  you  are 
always  telling  them  about  heathen  gods  and  goddesses,  as 
if  you  half  believed  in  them ;  and  you  represent  them  as 
good ;  and  then  we  see  there  is  really  a  kind  of  truth  in 
the  stories  about  them  ;  and  we  are  all  puzzled  :  and,' in  this, 
we  cannot  even  make  our  difficulty  quite  clear  to  ourselves  ;— 
it  would  be  such  a  long  confused  question,  if  we  could  ask 
you  all  we  should  like  to  know. 

L.  Nor  is  it  any  wonder,  Mary;  for  this  is  indeed  the  long- 
est,  and  the  most  wildly  confused  question  that  reason  can 
deal  with  ;  but  I  will  try  to  give  y  m,  quickly,  a  few  clear 
ideas  about  the  heathen  gods,  Avhich  you  may  follow  out  after 
wards,  as  your  knowledge  increases 


THE    CRYSTAL    REST.  221 

Every  heathen  conception  of  deity  in  •which  you  are  likelj 
to  be  interested,  has  three  distinct  characters  : — 

I.  It  has  a  physical  character.  It  represents  some  of  tho 
great  powers  or  objects  of  nature — sun  or  moon,  or  heaven, 
or  the  winds,  or  the  sea.  And  the  fables  first  related  about 
each  deity  represent,  figuratively,  the  action  of  the  natural 
power  which  it  represents ;  such  as  the  rising  and  setting  of 
the  sun,  the  tides  of  the  sea*,  and  so  on. 

II.  It  has  an  ethical  character,  and  represents,  in  its  history, 
the  moral  dealings  of  God  with  man.  Thus  Apollo  is  first, 
physically,  the  sun  contending  with  darkness ;  but  morally, 
the  power  of  divine  life  contending  with  corruption.  Athe- 
na is,  physically,  the  air ;  morally,  the  breathmg  of  the 
divine  eoirit  of  wisdom.  Neptune  is,  physically,  the  sea; 
morally,    he  supreme  power  of  agitating  passion  ;  and  so  on. 

III.  It  ha?,  at  last,  a  personal  character ;  and  is  realised  in 
the  minds  of  its  worshippers  as  a  living  spirit,  with  whom 
men  may  opeai  face  to  face,  as  a  man  speaks  to  his  friend. 

Now  it  is  impossible  to  define  exactly,  how  far,  at  any 
period  of  a  national  religion,  these  three  ideas  are  mingled  ; 
or  how  far  one  prevails  over  the  other.  Each  cuquirei 
usually  takes  up  one  of  these  ideas,  and  pursues  it,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  others  :  no  impartial  effort  seems  to  have 
been  made  to  discern  the  real  state  of  the  heathen  imagina- 
tion in  its  successive  phases.     For  the  question  is  not  at  all 


222  THE    CRYSTAL    KEST. 

what  a  mythological  figure  meant  in  its  origin  ;  but  what  it 
became  in  each  subsequent  mental  development  of'ths  nation 
inheriting  the  thought.  Exactly  in  proportion  to  the  mental 
ami  moral  insight  of  any  race,  its  mythological  figures  mean 
more  to  it,  and  become  more  real.  An  early  and  savage  race 
means  nothing  more  (because  it  has  nothing  more  to  mean) 
by  its  Apollo,  than  the  sun ;  while  a  cultivated  Greek  means 
every  operation  of  divine  intellect  and  justice.  The  Neith, 
of  Egypt,  meant,  physically,  little  more  than  the  blue  of 
the  air;  but  the  Greek,  in  a  climate  of  alternate  storm  and 
calm,  represented  the  wild  fringes  of  the  storm-cloud  by  the 
serpents  of  her  asgis ;  and  the  lightning  and  cold  of  the 
highest  thunder-clouds,  by  the  Gorgon  on  her  shield:  while 
morally,  the  same  types  represented  to  him  the  mystery  and 
changeful  terror  of  knowledge,  as  her  spear  and  helm  its  rul- 
ing and  defensive  power.  And  no  study  can  be  more  inte- 
resting, or  more  useful  to  you,  than  that  of  the  different 
meanings  which  have  been  created  by  great  nations,  and 
great  poets,  out  of  mythological  figures  given  them,  at  first, 
in  utter  simplicity.  But  when  we  approach  them  in  their 
third,  or  personal,  character  (and,  for  its  power  over  the 
whole  national  mind,  this  is  far  the  leading  one),  we  are  mei 
at  once  by  questions  which  may  well  put  all  of  you  at  pause. 
Were  they  idly  imagined  to  be  real  beings  ?  and  did  they  so 
usurp  the  place  of  the  true  God  ?    Or  were  they   lctuallj 


TIIB   CRYSTAi   REST.  223 

real  beings, — evil  spirits, — leading  men  away  from  the  true 
God  ?  Or  is  it  conceivable  that  they  might  have  been  real 
beings, — good  spirits, — entrusted  with  some  message  from 
the  true  God  ?  These  were  the  questions  you  wanted  to  ask  ,• 
were  they  not,  Lucilla  ? 

Lucilla.  Yes,  indeed. 

L.  "Well,  Lucilla,  the  answer  will  much  depend  upon  the 
clearness  of  your  faith  in  the  personality  of  the  spirits  which 
are  described  in  the  book  of  your  own  religion  ; — their  per- 
sonality, observe,  as  distinguished  from  merely  symbolical 
visions.  For  instance,  when  Jeremiah  has  the  vision  of  the 
seething  pot  with  its  mouth  to  the  north,  you  know  that  this 
which  he  sees  is  not  a  real  thing ;  but  merely  a  significant 
dream.  Also,  when  Zeehariah  sees  the  speckled  horses  among 
the  myrtle  trees  in  the  bottom,  you  still  may  suppose  the 
vision  symbolical ; — you  do  not  think  of  them  as  real  spirits, 
like  Pegasus,  seen  in  the  form  of  horses.  But  when  you  are 
told  of  the  four  riders  in  the  Apocalypse,  a  distinct  sense  of 
personality  begins  to  force  itself  upon  you.  And  though  you 
might,  in  a  dull  temper,  think  that  (for  one  instance  of  all) 
the  fourth  rider  on  the  pale  horse  was  merely  a  symbol  of  the 
power  of  death, — in  your  stronger  and  more  earnest  moods 
you  will  rather  conceive  of  him  as  a  real  and  living  angel. 
And  when  you  look  back  from  the  vision  of  the  Apocalypse 
to  the  account  of  the  destruction  of  the  Egyptian  first-born, 


224  TIIE    CRYSTAL   REST. 

and  of  the  army  of  Sennacherib,  and  again  to  David's  visioo 
at  the  threshing  floor  of  Araunah,  the  idea  of  personality  it 
this  death-angel  becomes  entirely  defined,  just  as  in  the 
appearance  of  the  angels  to  Abraham,  Manoah,  or  Mary, 

Now,  when  you  have  once  consented  to  this  idea  of  a 
personal  spirit,  must  not  the  question  instantly  follow:  'Does 
this  spirit  exercise  its  functions  towards  one  race  of  men 
only,  or  towards  all  men  ?  Was  it  an  angel  of  death  to  the 
Jew  only,  or  to  the  Gentile  also  ?'  You  find  a  certain  Divine 
agency  made  visible  to  a  King  of  Israel,  as  an  armed  angel, 
executing  vengeance,  of  which  one  special  purpose  was  to 
lower  his  kingly  pride.  You  find  another  (or  perhaps  the 
same)  agency,  made  visible  to  a  Christian  prophet  as  an 
angel  standing  in  the  sun,  calling  to  the  birds  that  fly  under 
heaven  to  come,  that  they  may  eat  the  flesh  of  kings?  la 
there  anything  impious  in  the  thought  that  the  same  agency 
might  have  been  expressed  to  a  Greek  king,  or  Greek  seer, 
by  similar  visions  ? — that  this  figure,  standing  in  the  sun,  and 
armed  with  the  sword,  or  the  bow  (whose  arrows  were 
drunk  with  blood),  and  exercising  especially  its  power  in  the 
humiliation  of  the  proud,  might,  at  first,  have  been  called 
only  '  Destroyer,'  and  afterwards,  as  the  light,  or  sun,  of 
justice,  was  recognised  in  the  chastisement,  called  also  'Phy- 
sician '  or  '  Healer  ?  '  If  you  feel  hesitation  in  admitting  the 
|  ossibility  of  such  a  manifestation,  I  believe  you  will  find  h 


THE   CRYSTAL    REST.  22o 

is  caused,  partly  indeed  by  such  trivial  things  as  the  differ 
ence  to  your  ear  between  Greek  and  English  terms  ;  but,  fai 
more,  by  uncertainty  in  your  own  mind  respecting  the  natuie 
and  truth  of  the  visions  spoken  of  in  the  Bible.  Have  any 
of  you  intently  examined  the  nature  of  your  belief  in  them  ? 
You,  for  instance,  Lucilla,  who  think  often,  and  seriously,  of 
such  things  ? 

Lucilla.  No  ;  I  never  could  tell  what  to  believe  about 
them.  I  know  they  must  be  true  in  some  way  or  other  ;  and 
I  like  reading  about  them. 

L.  Yes ;  and  I  like  reading  about  them  too,  Lucilla ;  as  I 
like  reading  other  grand  poetry.  But,  surely,  we  ought  both 
to  do  more  than  like  it?  Will  God  be  satisfied  with  as, 
think  you,  if  we  read  His  words,  merely  for  the  sake  of  an 
entirely  meaningless  poetical  sensation  ? 

Lucilla.  But  do  not  the  people  who  give  themselves  to 
seek  out  the  meaning  of  these  things,  often  get  very  strange, 
and  ext  ravagant  ? 

L.  More  than  that,  Lucilla.  They  often  go  mad.  That 
abandonment  of  the  mind  to  religious  thecfry,  or  contem- 
plation, is  the  very  thing  I  have  been  pleading  with  you 
against.  I  never  said  you  should  set  yourself  to  discover  the 
meanings;  but  you  should  take  careful  pains  to  understand 
them,  so  far  as  they  are  clear;  and  you  should  always  a  ecu 

rately  ascertain  the  state  of  your  mind  about  them.     I  warn 

10* 


226  THE   CRYSTAL   BEST. 

yon  never  to  read  merely  for  the  pleasure  of  fancy  ;  still  kea 
as  a  formal  religious  duty  (else  you  might  as  well  tak-:;  lo 
repeating  Paters  at  once ;  for  it  is  surely  wiser  to  repeat  one 
thing  we  understand,  than  read  a  thousand  which  we  can- 
not). Either,  therefore,  acknowledge  the  passages  to  be,  foi 
the  present,  unintelligible  to  you ;  or  else  determine  the  sense 
in  which  you  at  present  receive  them ;  or,  at  all  events,  the 
different  senses  between  which  you  clearly  see  that  you  must 
choose.  Make  either  your  belief,  or  your  difficulty,  definite ; 
but  do  not  go  on,  all  through  your  life,  believing  nothing 
intelligently,  and  yet  supposing  that  your  having  read  the 
words  of  a  divine  book  must  give  yon  the  right  to  despise 
every  religion  but  your  own.  I  assure  you,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  our  scorn  of  Greek  tradition  depends,  not  on  our 
belief,  but  our  disbelief,  of  our  own  traditions.  We  have,  as 
yet,  no  sufficient  clue  to  the  meaning  of  either  ;  but  you  will 
always  find  that,  in  proportion  to  the  earnestness  of  our  own 
faith,  its  tendency  to  accept  a  spiritual  personality  increases  : 
and  that  the  most  vital  and  beautiful  Christian  temper  rests 
joyfully  in  id?  conviction  of  the  multitudinous  ministry  of 
living  angels,  infinitely  varied  in  rank  and  power.  You  all 
know  one  expression  of  the  purest  and  happiest  form  of  such 
faith,  as  it  exists  in  modern  times,  in  Richter's  lovely 
illustrations  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  The  real  and  living 
death  angel,  girt  as  a  pilgrim  for  journey,  and  softly  'wwn 


THE   CRYSTAL   REST.  22"; 

ed  with  flowers,  beckons  at  the  dying  mother's  door ;  child- 
angels  sit  talking  face  to  face  with  mortal  children,  among 
the  flowers  ; — hold  them  by  their  little  coats,  lest  they  fall  or? 
the  stairs ; — whisper  dreams  of  heaven  to  them,  leaning  over 
their  pillows ;  carry  the  sound  of  the  church  bells  for  them  far 
through  the  air;  and  even  descending  lower  in  service,  fill 
little  cups  with  honey,  to  hold  out  to  the  weary  bee.  By  the 
way,  Lily,  did  you  tell  the  other  children  that  story  about 
your  little  sister,  and  Alice,  and  the  sea  ? 

Lily.  I  told  it  to  Alice,  and  to  Miss  Dora.  I  don't  think  I 
did  to  anybody  else.     I  thought  it  wasn't  worth. 

L.  We  shall  think  it  worth  a  great  deal  now,  Lily,  if  you 
will  tell  it  us.     How  old  is  Dotty,  again  ?     I  forget. 

Lily.  She  is  not  quite  three ;  but  she  has  such  odd  little 
old  ways,  sometimes. 

L.  And  she  was  very  fond  of  Alice  ? 

Lily.  Yes  ;  Alice  was  so  good  to  her  always! 

L.  Aiid  so  when  Alice  went  away  ? 

Lily.  Oh,  it  was  nothing,  you  know,  to  tell  about ;  only  it 
was  strange  at  the  time. 

L.  Well ;  but  I  want  you  to  tell  it. 

Lily.  The  morning  after  Alice  had  gone,  Dotty  was  very 
sad  and  restless  when  she  got  up ;  and  went  about,  looking 
into  all  the  corners,  as  if  she  could  find  Alice  in  them,  and  at 
last  she  came  to  me,  and  said,  '  Is  Alie  gone  over  the  great 


228  THE   CRYSTAL   BEST. 

Kca  ? '  And  I  said,  '  Yes,  she  is  gone  over  the  great,  deep 
sea,  but  she  will  come  back  again  some  day. '  Them  Doity 
looked  round  the  room  ;  and  I  had  just  poured  some  water 
out  into  the  basin;  and  Dotty  ran  to  it,  and  got  up  on  a 
chair,  and  dashed  her  hands  through  the  water,  again  and 
again  ;  and  cried,  '  Oh,  deep,  deep  sea !  send  little  Alie  bacV 
to  me.' 

L.  Isn't  that  pretty,  children?  There's  a  dear  little  hea 
then  for  you!  The  whole  heart  of  Greek  mythology  is  in 
that ;  the  idea  of  a  personal  being  in  the  elemental  power ; — 
of  its  being  moved  by  prayer; — and  of  its  presence  every- 
where, making  the  broken  diffusion  of  the  element  sacred. 

Now,  remember,  the  measure  in  which  we  may  permit 
ourselves  to  think  of  this  trusted  and  adored  personality,  in 
Greek,  oi  in  iny  other,  mythology,  as  conceivably  a  shadow 
of  truth,  vil  depend  on  the  degree  in  which  we  hold  the 
Greeks,  ox  other  great  nations,  equal,  ork  inferior,  in  privilege 
and  character,  to  the  Jews,  or  to  ourselves.  If  we  believe  that 
the  great  Father  would  use  the  imagination  of  the  Jew  as 
an  instrument  by  which  to  exalt  and  lead  him;  but  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  Greek  only  to  degrade  and  mislead  him :  if  wo 
can  suppose  that  real  angels  were  sent  to  minister  to  the 
Jews  and  to  punish  them;  but  no  angels,  or  only  mocking 
spectra  of  r.ngels,  or  even  devils  in  the  shapes  of  angels,  to 
lead  Lycurgus  and  Leonidas  from  desolate  cradle  to  hopeless 


THE    CRYSTAL    BEST.  229 

grave : — and  if  we  can  think  that  it  was  only  the  influence 
of  spectres,  or  the  teaching  of  demons,  which  issued  in  the 
making  of  mothers  like  Cornelia,  and  of  sons  like  Cleobia 
ai.dBito,  we  may,  of  course,  reject  the  heathen  Mythology  in 
our  privileged  scorn:  but,  at  least,  we  are  bound  to  examine 
strictly  by  what  faults  of  our  own  it  has  come  to  pass,  that 
the  ministry  of  real  angels  among  ourselves  is  occasionally 
so  ineffectual,  as  to  end  in  the  production  of  Cornelias  who 
entrust  their  child-jewels  to  Charlotte  "Winsors  for  the  better 
keeping  of  them  ;  and  of  sons  like  that  one  who,  the  other 
day,  in  France,  beat  his  mother  to  death  with  a  stick ;  and 
was  brought  in  by  the  jury,  'guilty,  with  extenuating  circum- 
stances.' 

May.  Was  that  really  possible  ? 

L.  Yes,  my  dear.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  can  lay  my  hand 
on  the  reference  to  it  (and  I  should  not  have  said  '  the  other 
day' — it  was  a  year  or  two  ago),  but  you  may  depend  on  the 
fact ;  and  I  could  give  you  many  like  it,  if  I  chose.  There 
was  a  murder  done  in  Iiussia,  very  lately,  on  a  traveller. 
The  murderess's  little  daughter  was  in  the  way,  and  found 
it  out,  somehow.  Her  mother  killed  her,  too,  and  put  her 
into  the  oven.  There  is  a  peculiar  horror  about  the  relations 
between  parent  and  child,  which  are  being  now  brought 
about  hy  our  variously  degraded  forms  of  European  white 
Blarery.     Here  is  one  reference,  I  see,  in  my  notes  on  thai 


230  THE   CRYSTAL   BEST. 

story  of  Cleobis  and  Bito ;  though  I  suppose  I  marked  this 
chiefly  for  its  quaintness,  and  the  beautifully  Chiistian  names 
of  the  sons ;  but  it  is  a  good  instance  of  the  poWer  of  thf 
King  of  the  Valley  of  Diamonds*  among  us. 

In  '  Galignani'  of  July  21-22,  1862,  is  reported  a  trial  of  a 
farmer's  son  in  the  department  of  the  Yonne.  The  father, 
two  years  ago,  at  Malay  le  Grand,  gave  up  his  property  to 
his  two  sons,  on  condition  of  being  maintained  by  them 
Simon  fulfilled  his  agreement,  but  Pierre  would  not.  The 
tribunal  of  Sens  condemns  Pierre  to  pay  eighty-four  francs  a 
year  to  his  father.  Pierre  replies,  '  he  would  rather  die  than 
pay  it.'  Actually,  returning  home,  he  throws  himself  into 
the  river,  and  the  body  is  not  found  till  next  day. 

Mas*.  But — but — I  can't  tell  what  you  would  have  us 
think.  r»o  you  seriously  mean  that  the  Greeks  were  better 
than  we  are;  and  that  their  gods  were  real  angels  ? 

L.  No,  my  dear.  I  mean  only  that  we  know,  in  reality, 
less  than  noticing  of  the  dealings  of  our  Maker  with  our 
fellow-men;  and  can  only  reason  or  conjecture  safely  about 
them,  when  we  h»ve  sincerely  humble  thoughts  of  ourselves 
and  our  creeds. 

We  owe  to  the  Greeks  every  noble  discipline  in  literature, 
every  radical  principle  of  art;  and  every  torin  of  convenient 
beauty  in  our  household  furniture  and  daily  oeeupntions  oi 

*  Note  vt. 


THE    CRYSTAL    REST.  231 

nfe.  We  are  unable,  ourselves,  to  make  rational  use  of  half 
that  we  have  received  from  them :  and,  of  our  own,  we  have 
nothing  but  discoveries  in  science,  and  line  mechanical  adap- 
tions of  the  discovered  physical  powers.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  vice  existing  among  certain  classes,  both  of  the 
rich  and  poor,  in  London,  Paris,  and  Vienna,  could  have  been 
conceived  by  a  Spartan  or  Roman  of  the  heroic  ages  only  aa 
possible  in  a  Tartarus,  where  fiends  were  employed  to  teach, 
but  not  to  punish,  crime.  It  little  becomes  us  to  speak  con- 
temptuously of  the  religion  of  races  to  whom  we  stand  in 
such  relations ;  nor  do  I  think  any  man  of  modesty  or 
though tfulness  will  ever  speak  so  of  any  religion,  in  which 
God  has  allowed  one  good  man  to  die,  trusting. 

The  more  readily  we  admit  the  possibility  of  our  own  che- 
rished convictions  being  mixed  with  error,  the  more  vital 
and  helpful  whatever  is  right  in  them  will  become  :  and  no 
error  is  so  conclusively  fatal  as  the  idea  that  God  will  not 
allow  us  to  err,  though  lie  has  allowed  all  other  men  to  do 
so.  There  may  be  doubt  of  the  meaning  of  other  visions, 
but  there  is  none  respecting  that  of  the  dream  of  St.  Peter ; 
and  you  may  trust  the  Rock  of  the  Church's  Foundation  for 
fcrue  interpreting,  when  he  learned  from  it  that,  'in  every 
nation,  he  that  feareth  God  and  worketh  righteousness,  is 
accepted  with  Eim.'  See  that  you  understand  what  that 
righteousness  means ;  and  set  hand  to  it  stoutly :  you  will 


232  THE   CRYSTAL    KEST. 

always  measure  your  neighbours'  creed  kindly,  in  proportion 
to  the  substantial  fruits  of  your  owu.  Do  not  think  you  will 
fiver  get  harm  by  striving  to  enter  into  the  faith  of  others, 
and  to  sympathise,  in  imagination,  with  the  guiding  prinei 
pies  of  their  lives.  So  only  can  you  justly  love  them,  or  pit) 
them,  or  praise.  By  the  gracious  eifort  you  will  double,  tre- 
ble— nay,  indefinitely  multiply,  at  once  the  pleasure,  the 
reverence,  and  the  intelligence  with  which  you  read  :  and, 
believe  me,  it  is  wiser  and  holier,  by  the  fire  of  your  own 
faith  to  kindle  the  ashes  of  expired  religions,  than  to  let  your 
soul  shiver  and  stumble  among  their  graves,  through  the 
gathering  darkness,  and  communicable  cold. 

Mary  [after  some  pause).  We  shall  all  like  reading  Greek 
history  so  much  better  after  this !  but  it  has  put  everything 
else  out  of  our  heads  that  Ave  wanted  to  ask. 

L.  I  can  tell  you  one  of  the  things;  and  I  might  take 
credit  for  generosity  in  telling  you ;  but  I  have  a  personal 
reason — Lucilla's  verse  about  the  creation. 

Dora.  Oh,  yes  —  yes ;  and  its  '  pain  together,  until 
now.' 

L.  I  call  you  back  to  that,  because  I  must  warn  yoii 
against  an  old  error  of  my  own.  Somewhere  in  the  fourth 
volume  of  '  Modern  Painters,'  I  said  that  the  earth  seemed 
to  have  passed  through  its  highest  state  :  and  that,  after 
ascending  by  a  series  of  phases,  culminating  in  its  habitation 


THE   CRYSTAL   KKST.  233 

t»y  man,  it  seems  to  be  now  gradually  becoming  less  lit  foi 
that  habitation. 

Mast.  Yes,  I  remember. 

L.  I  wrote  those  passages  under  a  very  bitter  impression 
of  the  gradual  perishing  of  beauty  from  the  loveliest  scenes 
which  I  knew  in  the  physical  world  ; — not  in  any  doubtful 
way,  such  as  I  might  have  attributed  to  loss  of  sensation  in 
myself — but  by  violent  and  definite  physical  action  ;  such  as 
the  filling  up  of  the  Lac  de  Chede  by  landslips  from  the 
Rochers  des  Fiz; — the  narrowing  of  the  Lake  Lucerne  by 
the  gaining  delta  of  the  stream  of  the  Muotta-Thal,  which, 
in  the  course  of  years,  will  cut  the  lake  into  two,  as  that  of 
Brientz  has  been  divided  from  that  of  Thun ; — the  steady 
diminishing  of  the  glaciers  north  of  the  Alps,  and  still  more, 
of  the  sheets  of  snow  on  their  southern  slopes,  which  supply 
the  refreshing  streams  of  Lombard y  : — the  equally  steady 
increase  of  deadly  mai'emma  round  Pisa  and  Venice  ;  and 
other  such  phenomena,  quite  measurably  traceable  within 
the  limits  even  of  short  life,  and  unaccompanied,  as  it  seemed, 
by  redeeming  or  compensatory  agencies.  I  am  still  under 
the  same  impression  resj^ecting  the  existing  phenomena  ;  bu 
1  feel  more  strongly,  every  day,  that  no  evidence  to  be  col- 
lected within  historical  periods  can  be  accepted  as  any  clue 
to  the  great  tendencies  of  geological  change;  but  that  the 
great  laws  which  never  fail,  and  to  which  all  change  is  sub 


234  THE   CRYSTAL    REST. 

ordinate,  appear  such  as  to  accomplish  a  gradual  advance  lo 
lovelier  order,  and  more  calmly,  yet  more  deeply,  animated 
Rest.  •  Nor  has  this  conviction  ever  fastened  itself  upon  me 
more  distinctly,  than  during  my  endeavour  to  trace  the  laws 
which  govern  the  lowly  framework  of  the  dust.  For, 
through  all  the  phases  of  its  transition  and  dissolution,  there 
seems  to  be  a  continual  effort  to  raise  itself  into  a  higher 
state  ;  and  a  measured  gain,  through  the  fierce  revulsion  and 
slow  renewal  of  the  earth's  frame,  in  beauty,  and  order,  and 
permanence.  The  soft  white  sediments  of  the  sea  draw 
themselves,  in  process  of  time,  into  smooth  knots  of  sphered 
symmetry;  burdened  and  strained  under  increase  of  pressure, 
they  pass  into  a  nascent  marble ;  scorched  by  fervent  heat, 
they  brighten  and  blanch  into  the  snowy  rock  of  Paros  and 
Carrara.  The  dark  drift  of  the  inland  river,  or  stagnant 
slime  of  inland  pool  and  lake,  divides,  or  resolves  itself  as  it 
dries,  into  layers  of  its  several  elements ;  slowly  purifying 
each  by  the  patient  withdrawal  of  it  from  the  anarchy  of  the 
mass  in  which  it  was  mingled.  Contracted  by  increasing 
drought,  till  it  must  shatter  into  fragments,  it  infuses  con- 
tinually a  finer  ichor  into  the  opening  veins,  and  finds'in  its 
weakness  the  first  rudiments  of  a  perfect  strength.  Rent  at 
last,  rock  from  rock,  nay,  atom  from  atom,  and  tormented  in 
lambent  fire,  it  knits,  through  the  fusion,  the  fibres  of  a 
perennial  endurance ;  and,  during  countless  subsequent  ceu 


THE    CRYSTAL   REST.  £""> 

turies,  declining,  or,  rather  let  me  say,  rising,  to  repose, 
finishes  the  infallible  lustre  of  its  crystalline  "beauty,  undo 
harmonies  of  law  which  are  wholly  beneScent,  because  wholl\ 
inexorable. 

(The  children  seem  pleased,  but  more  inclined  to  think 
over  these  matters  than,  to  talk.) 

L.  (after  giving  them  a  little  time.)  Mary,  I  seldom  ask  you 
to  read  anything  out  of  books  of  mine ;  but  there  is  a  passage 
about  the  Law  of  Help,  which  I  want  you  to  read  to  the 
children  now,  because  it  is  of  no  use  merely  to  put  it  in  other 
words  for  them.     You  know  the  place  I  mean,  do  not  you  ? 

Mary.  Yes  (presently  finding  it) ;  where  shall  I  begin  ? 

L.  Here  ;  but  the  elder  ones  had  better  look  afterwards  at 
the  piece  which  comes  just  before  this. 

Mary  (reads) : 

'  A  pure  or  holy  state  of  anything  is  that  in  which  all  its  parts  are 
helpful  or  consistent.  The  highest  and  first  law  of  the  universe,  and 
the  other  name  of  life,  is  therefore,  "  help."  The  other  name  of  death 
is  "  separation."  Government  and  co-operation  are  in  all  things,  and 
eternally,  the  laws  of  life.  Anarchy  and  competition,  eternally,  and  in 
all  thing-,  the  laws  of  death. 

'  Perhaps  the  best,  though  the  most  familiar,  example  we  could  take 
of  the  nature  and  power  of  consistence,  will  be  that  of  the  possible 
changes  in  the  dust  we  tread  on. 

'  Exclusive  of  animal  decay,  we  can  hardly  arrive  at  a  more  absolute 
type  of  impurity,  than  the  mud  or  slime  of  a  damp,  over-rrodder 


236  TI1E   CRYSTAL   REST. 

path,  in  the  outskirts  of  a  manufacturing  town.  I  do  not  say  mud  o^ 
the  road,  hecause  that  is  mixed  with  animal  refuse ;  but  take  merely 
an  ounce  or  two  of  the  blackest  slime  of  a  beaten  footpath,  on  a  rainy 
day,  near  a  manufacturing  town.  That  slime  we  shall  find  in  most 
cases  composed  of  clay  (or  brickdust,  which  is  burnt  clay),  mixed  with 
eoot,  a  little  sand  and  water.  All  these  elements  are  at  helpless  wax 
with  each  other,  and  destroy  reciprocally  each  other's  nature  and 
power :  competing  and  fighting  for  place  at  every  tread  of  your  foot ; 
sand  squeezing  out  clay,  and  clay  squeezing  out  water,  and  soot 
meddling  everywhere,  and  defiling  the  whole.  Let  us  suppose  that 
this  ounce  of  mud  is  left  in  perfect  rest,  and  that  its  elements  gather 
together,  like  to  like,  so  that  their  atoms  may  get  into  the  closest  rela- 
tions possible. 

Let  the  clay  begin.  Ridding  itself  of  all  foreign  substance,  it 
gradually  becomes  a  white  earth,  already  very  beautiful,  and  fit,  with 
help  of  congealing  fire,  to  be  made  into  finest  porcelain,  and  pointed 
on,  and  be  kept  in  kings'  palaces.  But  such  artificial  consistence  is 
not  its  best.  Leave  it  still  quiet,  -to  follow  its  own  instinct  of  unity, 
and  it  becomes,  not  only  white  but  clear;  not  only  clear,  but  hard; 
nor  only  clear  and  hard,  but  so  set  that  it  can  deal  with  light  in 
a  wonderful  way,  and  gather  out  of  it  the  loveliest  blue  rays  only, 
refusing  the  rest.     We  call  it  then  a  sapphire. 

'  Such  being  the  consummation  of  the  clay,  we  give  similar  permis 
v.on  of  quiet  to  the  sand.  It  also  becomes,  first,  a  white  earth ;  then 
proceeds  to  grow  clear  and  hard,  and  at  last  arranges  itself  in  myste- 
rious, infinitely  fine  parallel  lines,  which  have  the  power  of  reflecting, 
not  merely  the  blue  rays,  but  the  blue,  green,  purple,  and  red  rays,  in 


THE   CRYSTAL    REST.  237 

the  greatest  beauty  in  which  they  can  be  seen  through  acy  hard 
material  whatsoever.     We  call  it  then  an  opal. 

'In  next  order  the  soot  sets  to  work.  It  cannot  make  itself  white  at 
first;  but,  instead  of  being  discouraged,  tries  harder  and  harder;  and 
comes  out  clear  at  last ;  and  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world :  and  for  the 
blackness  that  it  had,  obtains  in  exchange  the  power  of  reflecting  all 
the  rays  of  the  sun  at  once,  in  the  vividest  blaze  that  any  solid  thing 
can  shoot.    "We  call  it  then  a  diamond. 

'  Last  of  all,  the  water  purifies,  or  unites  itself;  contented  enough 
if  it  only  reach  the  form  of  a  dewdrop:  but,  if  we  insist  on  ita 
proceeding  to  a  more  perfect  consistence,  it  crystallises  into  the  shape 
of  a  star.  And,  for  the  ounce  of  slime  which  we  had  by  political 
economy  of  competition,  we  have,  by  political  economy  of  co-opera- 
tion, a  sapphire,  an  opal,  and  a  diamond,  set  in  the  midst  of  a  star  oi 
Enow.' 

L.  I  have  asked  you  to  hear  that,  children,  because,  from 
all  that  we  have  seen  in  the  work  and  play  of  these  fast 
days,  I  would  have  you  gain  at  least  one  grave  and  endur- 
ing thought.  The  seeming  trouble, — the  unquestionable 
degradation, — of  the  elements  of  the  physical  earth,  must 
passively  wait  the  appointed  time  of  their  repose,  or  their 
restoration.  It  can  only  be  brought  about  for  them  by  the 
igency  of  external  law.  But  if,  indeed,  there  be  a  nobler 
life  in  us  than  in  these  strangely  moving  atoms ; — if,  indeed, 
there#is  an  eternal  difference  between  the  fire  which  inhabits 
them,  and  that  which  animates  us, — it  must  be  shown,  by 


238  THE   CRYSTAL   REST. 

each  of  us  in  his  appointed  place,  not  merely  in  the  patience, 
but  in  the  activity  of  our  hope ;  not  merely  by  our  desire, 
but  our  labour,  for  the  time  when  the  Dust  of  the  gene- 
rations of  men  shall  be  confirmed  for  foundations  of  the 
gates  of  the  city  of  God.  The  human  clay,  now  trampled 
and  despised,  will  not  be, — cannot  be, — knit  into  strength 
and  light  by  accident  or  ordinances  of  unassisted  fate.  By 
human  cruelty  and  iniquity  it  has  been  afflicted ; — by  human 
mercy  and  justice  it  must  be  raised:  and,  in  all  fear  or 
questioning  of  what  is  or  is  not,  the  real  message  of 
creation,  or  of  revelation,  you  may  assuredly  find  perfect 
peace,  if  you  are  resolved  to  do  that  which  your  Lord  has 
plainly  required, — and  content  that  He  should  indeed  require 
no  more  of  you, — than  to  do  Justice,  to  love  Mercy,  and 
to  walk  humbly  with  TTim. 


MO  TE8. 


NOTES. 


Note  I. 

Page  35. 

'  That  third  pyramid  of  hers.'' 

Throughout  the  dialogues,  it  must  be  observed  that '  Sibyl '  is  address- 
ed (when  in  play)  as  having  once  been  the  Cumaean  Sibyl;  and 
'Egypt'  as  having  been  queen  Nitocn^,  —  the  Cinderella,  and  'the 
greatest  heroine  and  beauty '  of  Egyptian  story.  The  Egyptians  call- 
ed her  'Neith  the  Victorious '  (Nitocris),  and  the  Greeks  '  Face  of  the 
Rose'  (Rhodope).  Chaucer's  beautiful  conception  of  Cleopatra  in 
the  'Legend  of  Good  Women,'  is  much  more  founded  on  the  tradi- 
tions of  her  than  on  those  of  Cleopatra;  and,  especially  in  its  close, 
modified  by  Herodotus's  terrible  siory  of  the  death  of  Nitocris.  which, 
however,  is  my  Ihologieally  nothing  more  than  a  part  of  the  deep 
monotonous  ancient  dirge  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  earthly  destiny  of 
Beauty;  'She  cast  herself  into  a  chamber  full  of  ashes.' 

I  believe  this  Queen  is  now  sufficiently  ascertained  to  have  either 
built,  or  increased  to  double  its  former  size,  the  third  pyramid  of 
Oizeh:  and  the  passage  following  in  the  text  refers  to  an  imaginary 
endeavour,  by  the  Old  Lecturer  and  the  children  together,  to  make  out 
the  description  of  that  pyramid  in  the  lG7th  page  of  the  second  vol- 
ume of  Bunsen's  '  Egypt's  Place  in  Universal  History' — ideal  endea« 
vour, — which  ideally  terminates  as  the  Old   Lecturer's  real  endea- 

11 


242  •      .NOTES. 

vours  to  the  same  end  always  have  terminated.      There  are,  however, 
valuable  notes  respecting  Nitocris  at  page  210  of  the  .^ame  volume: 
but  the  'Early  Egyptian  History  for  the  Young,' by  the  au( 
Sidney  Gray,  contains,  in  a  pleasant  form,  as  much  infcrmati&n  aa 
young  readers  will  usually  need 

Note  II. 

Page  37. 

1  Pyramid  of  Asychis.' 

This  pyramid,  in  mythology,  divides  with  the  Tower  of  Babel  the 
Bhame,  or  vain  glory,  of  being  presumptuously,  and  first  among  great 
edifices,  built  with  'brick  for  stone.'  This  was  the  inscription  on  it, 
according  to  Herodotus: — 

'  Despise  me  not,  in  comparing  me  with  the  pyramids  of  stone  ;  for 
I  have  the  pre-eminence  over  them,  as  far  as  Jupiter  ha>i  pre- 
eminence over  the  gods.  For,  striking  with  staves  into  the 
pool,  men  gathered  the  clay  which  fastened  itself  to  the  staff, 
and  kneaded  bricks  out  of  it,  and  so  made  me.' 

The  word  I  have  translated  '  kneaded  '  is  literally  '  drew ;'  in  the  sense 
of  drawing,  f>r  which  the  Latins  used  '  duco ;'  and  thus  gave  as  our 
ductile'  in  speaking  of  dead  clay,  and  Duke,  Doge,  or  ler.der,  in 
speaking  of  living  clay.  As  the  asserted  pre-eminence  of  the  edifice 
is  made,  in  this  inscription,  to  rest  merely  on  the  quantity  of  labooi 
consumed  in  it,  this  pyramid  is  considered,  in  the  text,  as  the  t)  pe,  * J 
once,  of  the  base  building,  and  of  the  lost  labour,  of  future  acres,  so  far 
at  least  as  the  spirits  of  measured  and  mechanical  effort  deal  with  it: 
but  Neith,  exercising  her  power  upon  it,  makes  it  a  t3~po  of  the  w  ">rk 
of  wise  and  in  ;pired  builders. 


NOTES.  243 

Note  IIL 

Page  38. 

'  The  Greater  Pthah: 

It  is  impossible,  as  yet,  to  define  with  distinctness  the  personaj 
agencies  of  the  Egyptian  deities.  They  are  continually  associated  in 
function,  or  hold  derivative  powers,  or  are  related  to  each  other  in 
mysterious  triads ;  uniting  always  symbolism  of  physical  phenomena 
with  real  spiritual  power.  I  have  endeavoured  partly  to  explain  this 
in  the  text  of  the  tenth  Lecture :  here,  it  is  only  necessary  for  the 
reader  to  know  that  the  Greater  Pthah  more  or  less  represents  the 
formative  power  of  order  and  measurement :  he  always  stands  on  a 
four-square  pedestal,  '  the  Egyptian  cubit,  metaphorically  used  as  the 
hieroglyphic  for  truth ;'  his  limbs  are  bound  together,  to  signify  fixed 
stability,  as  of  a  pillar ;  he  has  a  measuring-rod  in  his  hand ;  and  at 
Phike,  is  represented  as  holding  an  egg  on  a  potter's  wheel ;  but  I  do 
not  know  if  this  symbol  occurs  in  older  sculptures.  His  usual  title  is 
the  'Lord  of  Truth.'  Others,  ver)'  beautiful:  'King  of  the  Two 
Worlds,  of  Gracious  Countenance,'  '  Superintendent  of  the  Great 
Abode,'  etc.,  are  given  by  Mr.  Birch  in  Arundale's  '  Gallery  of  Anti- 
quities,' which  I  suppose  is  the  book  of  best  authority  easily  accessible. 
For  the  full  titles  and  utterances  of  the  gods,  Rosellini  is  as  yet  the  or.ly 
— and  I  believe,  still  a  very  questionable — authority;  and  Arunda 
little  book,  excellent  in  the  text,  has  this  great  defect,  that  its  draw- 
ings  give  the  statues  invariably  a  ludicrous  or  ignoble  character, 
Raadeis  who  have  not  access  to  the  originals  must  be  warned  again- 1 
this  frequent  fault  in  modern  illustration  (especially  existing  also  in 
some  of  the  painted  casts  of  Gothic  and  Norman  work  at  the  Cr 
Palace).     It  is  not  owing  to  any  wilful  want  of  veracity:  the  plates 


244  NOTES. 

in  Arun  dale's  book  are  laboriously  faithful :  but  the  expressions  ol 
both  face  and  body  in  a  figure  depend  merely  on  emphasis  of  touch' 
and,  in  barbaric  art,  most  draughtsmen  emphasise  what  they  plainly  se? 
— the  barbarism;  and  mi^s  conditions  of  nobleness,  which  they  muul 
approach  -the  monument  in  a  different  temper  before  they  will  discover 
and  draw  with  great  subtlety  before  they  can  express. 

The  character  of  the  Lower  Pthah.  or  perhaps  I  ought  rather  to  say, 
of  Pthah  in  his  lower  office,  is  sufficiently  explained  in  the  text  of  the 
tnird  Lecture ;  only  the  reader  must  be  warned  that  the  Egyptian 
symbolism  of  him  by  the  beetle  was  not  a  scornful  one ;  it  expressed 
only  the  idea  of  his  presence  in  the  first  elements  of  life.  But  it  may 
not  unjustly  be  used,  in  another  sense,  by  us,  who  have  seen  his 
power  in  new  development;  and,  even  as  it  was,  I  cannot  conceive 
that  the  Egyptians  should  have  regarded  their  beetle-headed  image  of 
him  (Champollion,  'Pantheon,'  pi.  12),  without  some  occult  scorn. 
It  is  the  most  painful  of  all  their  types  of  any  beneficent  power;  and 
even  among  those  of  evil  influences,  none  can  be  compared  with  it, 
except  its  opposite,  the  tortoise-headed  demon  of  indolence. 

Pasht  (p.  36,  line  19)  is  connected  with  the  Greek  Artemis,  especially 
in  her  offices  of  judgment  and  vengeance.  She  is  usually  lioness- 
headed  ;  sometimes  cat-headed ;  her  attributes  seeming  often  trivial  or 
ludicrous  unless  their  full  meaning  is  known ;  but  the  enquiry  is  much 
too  wide  to  be  followed  here.  The  cat  was  sacred  to  her ;  or  rather 
to  the  sun,  and  secondarily  to  her.  She  is  alluded  to  in  the  text 
because  she  is  always  the  companion  of  Pthah  (called  'the  beloved  of 
Pthah,'  it  may  be  as  Judgment,  demanded  and  longed  for  by  Truth) ; 
end  it  maybe  well  for  young  readers  to  have  this  fixed  in  their  minds, 
even  by  chance  association  There  are  more  statues  of  Pasht  in  the 
British  Museum  than  of  any  other  Egyptian  deity ;  several  of  them 
fine  in  workmanship ;  nearly  all  in  dark  stone,  which  may  be,  pre 


NOTES.  246 

»umably,  to  connect  her,  as  the  moon,  with  the  night;  and  in  hei 
office  of  avenger,  with  grief. 

Thoth  (p.  40,  line  18),  is  the  Recording  Angel  of  Judgment ;  and  the 
Greek  Hermes     Phre  (line  21),  is  the  Sun. 

Neith  is  the  Egyptian  spirit  of  divine  wisdom ;  and  the  Athena 
of  the  Greeks.  No  sufficient  statement  of  her  many  attributes,  still 
less  of  their  meanings,  can  be  shortly  given;  but  this  should  be 
noted  respecting  the  veiling  of  the  Egyptian  image  of  her  by 
vulture  wings — that  as  she  is,  physically,  the  goddess  of  the  air,  this 
bird,  the  most  powerful  creature  of  the  air  known  to  the  Egyp- 
tians, naturally  became  her  symbol.  It  had  other  significations; 
but  certainly  this,  when  in  connection  with  Neith.  As  represent- 
ing her,  it  was  the  most  important  sign,  next  to  the  winged  sphere, 
in  Egyptian  sculpture;  and,  just  as  in  Homer,  Athena  herself 
guides  her  heroes  into  battle,  this  symbol  of  wisdom,  giving  victory, 
floats  over  the  heads  of  the  Egyptian  kings.  The  Greeks,  repre- 
senting the  goddess  herself  in  human  form,  yet  would  not  lose  the 
power  of  the  Egyptian  symbol,  and  changed  it  into  an  angel  of 
victory.  First  seen  in  loveliness  on  the  early  coins  of  Syracuse 
and  Leontium,  it  gradually  became  the  received  sign  of  all  con- 
quest, and  the  so-called  '  Victory '  of  later  times ;  which,  little  by 
little,  loses  its  truth,  and  is  accepted  by  the  moderns  only  as  a 
personification  of  victory  itself, — not  as  an  actual  picture  of  the 
living  Angel  who  led  to  victory.  There  is  a  wide  difference  between 
these  two  conceptions, — all  the  difference  between  insincere  poetry, 
and  sincere  religion.  This  I  have  also  endeavoured  farther  to  illustrate 
in  the  tenth  Lecture ;  there  is  however  one  part  of  Athena's  character 
which  it  would  have  been  irrelevant  to  dwell  upon  there ;  yet  which 
I  must  not  wholly  leave  unnoticed. 

Aa   the  goddess  of   the  air,   she  physically   represents  both  iti 


246  NOTES. 

beneficent  calm,  and  necessary  tempest:  other  storm-deities  (as 
Chrysaor  and  JSolus)  being  invested  with  a  subordinate  and  more  or 
less  malignant  function,  which  is  exclusively  their  own,  and  is  related 
to  that  of  Athena  as  the  power  of  Mars  is  related  to  hers  in  war.  So 
also  Virgil  makes  her  able  to  wield  the  lightning  herself,  while  Juno 
cannot,  but  must  pray  for  the  intervention  of  -<Eolus.  She  has 
precisely  the  correspondent  moral  authority  over  calmness  of  mind, 
and  just  anger.  She  soothes  Achilles,  as  she  incites  Tydides;  her 
physical  power  over  the  air  being  always  hinted  correlatively.  She 
grasps  Achilles  by  his  hair — as  the  wind  would  lift  it — softly, 

'  It  fanned  his  cheek,  it  raised  his  hair, 
Like  a  meadow  gale  in  spring." 

She  does  not  merely  turn  the  lance  of  Mars  from  Diomed ;  but  seizes 
it  in  both  her  hands,  and  casts  it  aside,  with  a  sense  of  making  it  vain, 
like  chaff  in  the  wind ; — to  the  shout  of  Achilles,  she  adds  her  own 
voice  of  storm  in  heaven — but  in  all  cases  the  moral  power  is  still  the 
principal  one — most  beautifully  in  that  seizing  of  Achilles  by  the  hair, 
which  was  the  talisman  of  his  life  (because  he  had  vowed  it  to  the 
Sperchius  if  he  returned  in  safety),  and  which,  in  giving  at  Patroelus' 
tomb,  he,  knowingly,  yields  up  the  hope  of  return  to  his  country,  and 
signifies  that  he  will  die  with  his  friend.  Achilles  and  Tydides  are, 
above  all  other  heroes,  aided  by  her  in  war,  because  their  prevailing 
characters  are  the  desire  of  justice,  united  in  both,  with  deep  affec- 
tions; and,  in  Achilles,  with  a  passionate  tenderness,  which  is  the  real 
root  of  his  passionate  anger.  Ulysses  is  her  favourite  chiefly  in  aer 
office  as  the  goddess  of  conduct  and  design. 


NOTES.  247 

Note  IV. 
Page  86. 

'  Geometrical  limitations.' 

It  is  difficult,  without  a  tedious  accuracy,  or  without  full  illus  [ration 
to  express  the  complete  relations  of  crystalline  structure,  which 
dispose  minerals  to  take,  at  different  times,  fibrous,  massive,  or  foliated 
forms ;  and  I  am  afraid  this  chapter  will  be  generally  skipped  by  the 
reader:  yet  the  arrangement  itself  will  be  found  useful,  if  kept 
broadly  in  mind;  and  the  transitions  of  state  are  of  the  highest 
interest,  if  the  subject  is  entered  upon  with  any  earnestness.  It 
would  have  been  vain  to  add  to  the  scheme  of  this  little  volume  any 
account  of  the  geometrical  forms  of  crystals:  an  available  one,  though 
still  far  too  difficult  and  too  copious,  has  been  arranged  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Mitchell,  for  Orr's  'Circle  of  the  Sciences';  and,  I  believe,  the 
'nets'  of  crystals,  which  are  therein  given  to  be  cut  out  with  scissors 
and  put  prettily  together,  will  be  found  more  conquerable  by  young 
"ladies  than  by  other  students.  They  s'hould  also,  when  an  oppor- 
tunity occurs,  be  shown,  at  any  public  library,  the  diagram  of  the 
crystallisation  of  quartz  referred  to  poles,  at  p.  8  of  Cloizaux's  'Manuel 
de  Mincralogie ' :  that  tliey  may  know  what  work  is;  and  what  the 
subject  is. 

With  a  view  to  more  careful  examination  of  the  nascent  states  of 
silica,  I  hare  made  no  allusion  in  this  volume  to  the  influence  of  mere 
segregation,  a3  connected  witk  the  crystalline  power.  It  has  only 
been  recently,  during  the  study  of  the  breccias  alluded  to  in  page  190, 
that  I  have  fully  seen  the  extent  to  which  this  singular  fori-, 
modifies  rocks  in  which  at  first  its  influence  might  hardly  hav< 
suspected;    many   apparent  conglomerates  being  in   reality   formed 


248  NOTES. 

chiefly  by  segregation,  combined  with  mysterious  brokenly -zoned  struc- 
tures, like  those  of  some  malachites.  I  hope  some  day  to  know  more 
of  these  and  several  other  mineral  phenomena  (especially  of  thoM 
connected  with  the  relative  sizes  of  crystals),  which  otherwise  I  should 
have  endeavoured  to  describe  in  this  volume. 

Note  V. 

Page  171. 

•  St.  Barlara,: 

I  would  have  given  the  legends  of  St.  Barbara,  and  St.  Thomas,  if  I 
had  thought  it  always  well  for  young  readers  to  have  everything  at 
once  told  them  which  they  may  wish  to  know.  They  will  remember 
the  stories  better  after  taking  some  trouble  to  find  them ;  and  the  text 
is  intelligible  enough  as  it  stands.  The  idea  of  St.  Barbara.,  as  there 
given,  is  founded  partly  on  her  legend  in  Peter  de  Natalibus,  partly 
on  the  beautiful  photograph  of  Van  Eyck's  picture  of  her  &t  Antwerp : 
which  was  some  time  since  published  at  Lille. 

Note  VI. 

Page  230. 

'  King  of  the  Valley  of  Diamonds.' 

Isabel  interrupted  the  Lecturer  here,  and  was  briefly  bid  to  hold  her 
tongue;  which  gave  rise  to  some  talk,  apart,  afterwards,  between  L. 
and  Sibyl,  of  which  a  word  or  two  may  be  perhaps  advisably  set 
do  \vn. 

Sibyl.  We  shall  spoil  Isabel,  certainly,  if  we  don't  mind :  I  was 
glad  you  stopped  her,  and  yet  sorry ;  for  she  wanted  so  much  to  ask 
about  the  Valley  of  Diamonds  again,  and  she  has  worked  so  hard  at 


NOTES.  249 

it,  and  made  it  nearly  all  out  by  herself.     She  recollected   Elisha's 
throwing  in  the  meal,  which  nobody  else  did. 

L.  But  what  did  she  want  to  ask? 

Sibyl.  About  the  mulberry  trees  and  the  serpents;  we  ars  all 
itopped  by  that.     Won't  you  tell  143  what  it  means  ? 

L.  Now,  Sibyl,  I  am  sure  you,  who  never  explained  yourself 
should  be  the  last  to  expect  others  to  do  so.  I  hate  explaining 
myself 

Sibyl.  And  yet  how  often  you  complain  of  other  people  for  not 
saying  what  they  meant  How  I  have  heard  you  growl  over  the 
three  stone  steps  to  purgatory ;  for  instance ! 

L.  Yes;  because  Dante's  meaning  is  worth  getting  at;  but  mine 
matters  nothing :  at  least,  if  ever  I  think  it  is  of  any  consequence,  I 
speak  it  as  clearly  as  may  be.  But  you  may  make  anything  you  like 
of  the  serpent  forests.  I  could  have  helped  you  to  find  out  what  they 
were,  by  giving  a  little  more  detail,  but  it  would  have  been  tiresome. 

SrBYL.  It  is  much  more  tiresome  not  to  find  out.  Tell  us,  please, 
as  Isabel  says,  because  we  feel  so  stupid. 

L.  There  is  no  stupidity ;  you  could  not  possibly  do  more  than 
guess  at  anything  so  vague.  But  I  think,  you,  Sibyl,  at  least,  might 
have  recollected  what  first  dyed  the  mulberry  ? 

Sibyl.  So  I  did;  but  that  helped  little;  I  thought  of  Dante's 
forest  of  suicides,  too,  but  you  would  not  simply  have  borrowed  that? 

L.  No.  If  I  had  had  strength  to  use  it,  I  should  have  stolen  it,  to 
beat  into  mother  shape;  not  borrowed  it.  But  that  idea  of  souls  in 
trees  is  as  old  as  the  world;  or  at  least,  as  the  world  of  man.  And  I 
did  mean  that  there  were  souls  in  those  dark  branches; — the  souls  of 
all  those  who  had  perished  in  misery  through  the  pursuit  of  riches 
and  that  the  river  was  of  their  blood,  gathering  gradually,  and  flowing 
out  of  the  valley.     Then  I  meant  the  serpents  for  the  souls  of  tbos« 

11* 


250  .NOTES. 

who  had  lived  carelessly  aud  wantonly  in  their  riches ;  and  Wiio  i  avi 
all  their  sins  forgiven  by  the  world,  because  they  are  rich :  and  there- 
fore they  have  seven  crimson-crested  heads,  for  the  seven  mortal  sins; 
of  "which  they  are  proud :  and  these,  and  the  memory  and  report  of 
them,  are  the  chief  causes  of  temptation  to  others,  as  showing  the 
pleasantness  and  absolving  power  of  riches ;  so  that  thus  they  are 
singing  serpents.  And  the  worms  are  the  souls  of  the  common 
money-getters  and  traffickers,  who  do  nothing  but  eat  and  spin :  and 
who  gain  habitually  by  the  distress  or  foolishness  of  others  (as  you 
see  the  butchers  have  been  gaining  out  of  the  panic  at  the  cattle 
plague,  among  the  poor), — so  they  are  made  to  eat  the  dark  leaves, 
and  spin,  and  perish. 

Sibyl.  And  the  souls  of  the  great,  cruel,  rich  people  who  oppress 
the  poor,  and  lend  money  to  government  to  make  unjust  war,  where 
are  they  ? 

L.  They  change  into  the  ice,  I  believe,  and  are  knit  with  the  gold; 
and  make  the  grave-dust  of  the  valley.  I  believe  so,  at  least,  for  no 
one  ever  sees  those  souls  anywhere. 

(Sibyl  ceases  questioning.) 

Isabel  (who  has  crept  vp  to  her  side  without  any  one's  seeing).  Oh, 
Sibyl,  please  ask  him  about  the  fireflies ! 

L.  What,  you  there,  mousie!  No;  I  won't  tell  either  Sibyl  or  you 
about  the  fireflies;  nor  a  word  more  about  anything  else.  You 
ought  to  be  little  fireflies  yourselves,  and  find  your  way  in  twilight  by 
your  own  wits. 

Isabel.  But  you  said  they  burned,  you  know  ? 

L.  Yes;  and  you  may  be  fireflies  that  way  too,  some  of  you, 
before  long,  though  I  did  not  mean  that  Away  with  you,  children 
Tou  have  thought  enough  for  to-day. 


NOTES.  251 


NOTE   TO   SECOND   EDITION. 

Sentence  out  of  letter  from  May,  (who  is  staying  with  Isabel  just  now 
*i  Cassel),  dated  loth  June,  1877  : — 

"  I  ana  reading  the  Ethics  with  a  nice  Irish  girl  who  is  staying  hero, 
and  she's  just  as  puzzled  as  I've  always  been  about  the  fire-llies,  and  we 
both  want  to  know  so  much. — Please  be  a  very  nice  old  Lecturer,  and 
tell  us,  won't  you  ?  " 

Well,  May,  you  never  were  a  vain  girl ;  bo  could  scarcely  guess  that 
I  meant  them  for  the  light,  unpursued  vanities,  which  yet  blind  us, 
confused  among  the  stars.  One  evening,  as  I  came  late  into  Siena, 
the  fire-flies  were  flying  high  on  a  stormy  sirocco  wind, — the  stars  them- 
selves no  brighter,  and  all  their  host  seeming,  at  momenta,  to  fade  a* 
the  insects  faded. 


THE 


CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 


&l)tce  Cectutes 


OH 


WORK,   TRAFFIC,   AND    WAR. 


BY 

JOHN    BUSKIN,     M.A 


And  Indeed  It  should  have  been  of  gold,  had  not  Jupiter  been  so  poor. 

Aristophanes  (Plutuc) 


NEW   YORK: 
JOHN  WILEY  &  SONS,  PUBLISHERS, 

IB  ASTOR  PIAOB. 

1888. 


PREFACE. 


Twenty  years  ago,  there  was  no  lovelier  piece  of  lowland 
scenery  in  South  England,  nor  any  more  pathetic  in  the 
world,  by  its  expression  of  sweet  human  character  and  life, 
than  that  immediately  bordering  on  the  sources  of  the 
"Wandle,  and  including  the  lower  moors  of  Addington,  and 
the  villages  of  Beddington  and  Carshalton,  with  all  their 
pools  and  streams.  No  clearer  or  diviner  waters  ever  sang 
with  constant  lips  of  the  hand  which  'giveth  rain  from 
heaven ; '  no  pastures  ever  lightened  in  spring  time  with 
more  passionate  blossoming ;  no  sweeter  homes  ever  hal- 
lowed the  heart  of  the  passer-by  with  their  pride  of  peaceful 
gladness — fain-hidden — yet  full-confessed.  The  place  re- 
mains, or,  until  a  few  months  ago,  remained,  nearly 
unchanged  in  its  larger  features  ;  but,  with  deliberate  mind 
I  say,  that  I  have  never  seen  anything  so  ghastly  in  its 
inner  tragic  meaning, — not  m  Pisan  Maremma, — not  by 
Campagna  tomb, — not  by  the  sand-isles  of  the  Torcellan 
shore,— as  the  slow  stealing  of  aspects  of  reckless,  indolent, 
animal  neglect,  over  the  delicate  sweetness  of  that  English 


iv  PREFACE. 

scene  :  nor  is  any  blasphemy  or  impiety — any  frantic  saying 
or  godless  thought — more  appalling  to  me,  using  the  best 
power  of  judgment  I  have  to  discern  its  sense  and  scope, 
than  the  insolent  defilings  of  those  springs  by  the  human 
herds  that  drink  of  them.  Just  where  the  welling  of  stain- 
less water,  trembling  and  pure,  like  a  body  of  light,  enters 
the  pool  of  Carshalton,  cutting  itself  a  radiant  channel  down 
to  the  gravel,  through  warp  of  feathery  weeds,  all  waving, 
which  it  traverses  with  its  deep  threads  of  clearness,  like 
the  chalcedony  in  moss-agate,  starred  here  and  there  with 
white  grenouillette ;  just  in  the  very  rush  and  murmur  of 
the  first  spreading  currents,  the  human  wretches  of  the 
place  cast  their  street  and  house  foulness ;  heaps  of  dust  and 
slime,  and  broken  shreds  of  old  metal,  and  rags  of  putrid 
clothes ;  they  having  neither  energy  to  cart  it  away,  nor 
decency  enough  to  dig  it  into  the  ground,  thus  shed  into 
the  stream,  to  diffuse  what  venom  of  it  will  float  and  melt, 
far  away,  in  all  places  where  God  meant  those  waters  to 
bring  joy  and  health.  And,  in  a  little  pool,  behind  some 
houses  farther  in  the  village,  where  another  spring  rises,  the 
shattered  stones  of  the  well,  and  of  the  little  fretted  channel 
which  was  long  ago  built  and  traced  for  it  by  gentlei 
hands,  lie  scattered,  each  from  each,  under  a  ragged  bank 
of  mortar,  and  scoria ;  and  bricklayers'  refuse,  on  one  side, 
which  the  clean  water  nevertheless  chastises  to  purity  ;  but 


PREFACE. 


it  cannot  conquer  the  dead  earth  beyond  ;  and  there,  circled 
and  coiled  under  festering  scum,  the  stagnant  edge  of  the 
pool  effaces  itself  into  a  slope  of  black  slime,  the  accumula- 
tion of  indolent  years.  Half-a-dozen  men,  with  one  day's 
work,  could  cleanse  those  pools,  and  trim  the  flowers  about 
their  banks,  and  make  every  breath  of  summer  air  above 
them  rich  with  cool  balm  ;  and  every  glittering  wave  medi- 
cinal, as  if  it  ran,  troubled  of  angels,  from  the  porch  of 
Bethesda.  But  that  day's  work  is  never  given,  nor  will 
be ;  nor  will  any  joy  be  possible  to  heart  of  man,  for 
evermore,  about  those  wells  of  English  waters. 

When  I  last  left  them,  I  walked  up  slowly  through  the 
back  streets  of  Croydon,  from  the  old  church  to  the  hos- 
pital ;  and,  just  on  the  left,  before  coming  up  to  the  cross- 
ing of  the  High  Street,  there  was  a  new  public-house  built. 
And  the  front  of  it  was  built  in  so  wise  manner,  that  a 
recess  of  two  feet  was  left  below  its  front  windows,  between 
them  and  the  street-pavement— a  recess  too  narrow  for  any 
possible  use  (for  even  if  it  had  been  occupied  by  a  seat,  as 
in  old  time  it  might  have  been,  everybody  walking  along 
the  street  would  have  fallen  over  the  legs  of  the  reposing 
wayfarers).  But,  by  way  of  making  this  two  feet  depth  of 
freehold  land  more  expressive  of  the  dignity  of  an  esta- 
blishment for  the  sale  of  spirituous  liquors,  it  was  fenced 
from  the  pavement  by  an  imposing  iron  railing,  having  foui 


VI  PREFACE. 

or  five  spearheads  to  the  yard  of  it,  and  six  feet  high ;  con 
taining  as  much  iron  ard  iron-work,  indeed,  as  could  well 
be  put  into  the  space ;  and  by  this  stately  arrangement,  the 
little  piece  of  dead  ground  within,  between  wall  and  street, 
became  a  protective  receptacle  of  refuse;  cigar  ends,  and 
oyster  shells,  and  the  like,  such  as  an  open-handed  English 
street-populace  habitually  scatters  from  its  presence,  and 
was  thus  left,  unsweepable  by  any  ordinary  methods.  Now 
the  iron  bars  which,  uselessly  (or  in  great  degree  worse 
than  uselessly),  enclosed  this  bit  of  ground,  and  made  it 
pestilent,  represented  a  quantity  of  work  which  would  have 
cleansed  the  Carshalton  pools  three  times  over ; — of  work, 
partly  cramped  and  deadly,  in  the  mine  ;  partly  fierce*  and 

*  '  A  fearful  occurrence  took  place  a  few  days  since,  near  "Wolverhamp- 
ton. Thomas  Snape,  aged  nineteen,  was  on  duty  as  the  "  keeper "  of  a 
blast  furnace  at  Deepfield,  assisted  by  John  Gardner,  aged  eighteen,  and 
Joseph  Swift,  aged  thirty-seven.  The  furnace  contained  four  tons  of  molten 
iron,  and  an  equal  amount  of  cinders,  and  ought  to  have  been  run  out  at  7-30 
P.M.  But  Snape  and  his  mates,  engaged  in  talking  and  drinking:,  neglected 
their  duty,  and,  in  the  meantime,  the  iron  rose  in  the  furnace  until  it  reached 
a  pipe  wherein  water  was  contained.  Just  as  the  men  had  stripped,  and 
were  t  roceeding  to  tap  the  furnace,  the  water  in  the  pipe,  converted  into 
Bteam,  burst  down  its  front  and  let  loose  on  them  the  molten  metal,  which 
instantaneously  consumed  Gardner ;  Snape,  terribly  burnt,  and  mad  with 
pain,  leaped  into  the  canal  and  then  ran  home  and  fell  dead  on  the  threat 
old ,  Swift  survived  to  reach  the  hospital,  where  he  died  too. 


PBEFACE.  .  V1J 

exhaustive,  at  the  furnace  ;  partly  foolish  and  sedentary, 
of  ill-taught  students  making  bad  designs :  work  from  the 
beginning  to  the  last  fruits  of  it,  and  in  all  the  branches  of 
it,  venomous,  deatbful,  and  miserable.  Now,  how  did  it 
come  to  pass  that  this  work  was  done  instead  of  the  other ; 
that  the  strength  and  life  of  the  English  operative  were 
spent  in  defiling  ground,  instead  of  redeeming  it ;  and  in 
producing  an  entirely  (in  that  place)  valueless  piece  of 
metal,  which  can  neither  be  eaten  nor  breathed,  instead  of 
medicinal  fresh  air,  and  pure  water  ? 

There  is  but  one  reason  for  it,  and  at  present  a  conclusive 
one, — that  the  capitalist  can  charge  per-centage  on  the  work 
in  the  one  case,  and  cannot  in  the  other.  If,  having  certain 
funds  for  supporting  labour  at  my  disposal,  I  pay  men 
merely  to  keep  my  ground  in  order,  my  money  is,  in  that 
function,  spent  once  for  all ;  but  if  I  pay  them  to  dig  iron 
out  of  my  ground,  and  work  it,  and  sell  it,  I  can  charge 
rent  for  the  ground,  and  percentage  both  on  the  manufac- 
ture and  the  sale,  and  make  my  capital  profitable  in  these 
three  bye-ways.  The  greater  part  of  the  profitable  invest- 
ment of  capital,  in  the  present  day,  is  in  operations  of  this 

In  further  illustration  of  tliis  matter,  I  beg  the  reader  to  look  at  the 
article  on  the  '  Decay  of  the  English  Race,'  in  the  •  Pall-lfall  Gazette '  of 
April  17,  of  this  year;  and  at  the  articles  on  the  '  Report  of  the  Thames 
Commission,'  in  any  journals  of  the  same  date. 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

kind,  in  which  the  public  is  persuaded  to  buy  something 
of  no  use  to  it,  on  production,  or  sale,  of  which,  the  capital- 
ist may  charge  per-centage ;  the  said  public  remaining  all 
the  while  under  the  persuasion  that  the  per  centages  thus 
obtained  are  real  national  gains,  whereas,  they  are  merely 
filchings  out  of  partially  light  pockets,  to  swell  heavy 
ones. 

Thus,  the  Croydon  publican  buys  the  iron  railing,  to 
make  himself  more  conspicuous  to  drunkards.  The  public- 
house-keeper  on  the  other  side  of  the  way  presently  buys 
another  railing,  to  out-rail  him  with.  Both  are,  as  to  their 
relative  attractiveness  to  customers  of  taste,  just  where  they 
were  before;  but  they  have  lost  the  price  of  the  railings; 
which  they  must  either  themselves  finally  lose,  or  make 
their  aforesaid  customers  of  taste  pay,  by  raising  the  price 
of  their  beer,  or  adulterating  it.  Either  the  publicans,  or 
their  customers,  are  thus  poorer  by  precisely  what  the 
capitalist  has  gained ;  and  the  value  of  the  work  itself, 
meantime,  has  been  lost  to  the  nation;  the  iron  bars  in 
that  form  and  place  being  wholly  useless.  It  is  this  mode 
of  taxation  of  the  poor  by  the  rich  which  is  referred  to  in 
the  text  (page  31),  in  comparing  the  modern  acquisitive 
power  of  capital  with  that  of  the  lance  and  sword ;  the 
only  difference  being  that  the  levy  of  black  mail  in  old 
times  was  by  force,  and  is  now  by  cozening.     The  old 


PREFACE.  IB 

rider  and  reiver  frankly  quartered  himself  on  the  publicat 
for  the  night ;  the  modern  one  merely  makes  his  lance  into 
an  iron  spike,  and  persuades  his  host  to  buy  it.  One 
comes  as  an  open  robber,  the  other  as  a  cheating  pedlar  ; 
but  the  result,  to  the  injured  person's  pocket,  is  absolutely 
the  same.  Of  course  many  useful  industries  mingle  with, 
and  disguise  the  useless  ones;  and  in  the  habits  of  energy 
aroused  by  the  struggle,  there  is  a  certain  direct  good.  It 
is  far  better  to  spend  four  thousand  pounds  in  making  a 
good  gun,  and  then  to  blow  it  to  pieces,  than  to  pass  life 
in  idleness.  Only  do  not  let  it  be  called  '  political  economy.' 
There  is  also  a  confused  notion  in  the  minds  of  many  per- 
sons, that  the  gathering  of  the  property  of  the  poor  into 
the  hands  of  the  rich  does  no  ultimate  harm ;  since,  in 
whosesoever  hands  it  may  be,  it  must  be  spent  at  last,  and 
thus,  they  think,  return  to  the  poor  again.  This  fallacy 
has  been  again  and  again  exposed  ;  but  grant  the  plea  true, 
and  the  same  apology  may,  of  course,  be  made  for  black 
mail,  or  any  other  form  of  robbery.  It  might  be  (though 
practically  it  never  is)  as  advantageous  for  the  nation  that 
the  robber  should  have  the  spending  of  the  money  he  ex- 
torts, as  that  the  person  robbed  should  have  spent  it.  But 
this  is  no  excuse  for  the  theft.  If  I  were  to  put  a  turnpike 
on  the  road  where  it  passes  my  own  gate,  and  endtavour 
to  exact  a  shilling  from  every  passenger,  the  publ'c  would 


PKEFACE. 


soon  do  away  with  my  gate,  without  listening  to  any  plea 
on  my  part  that  'it  was  as  advantageous  to  them,  in  the 
end,  that  I  should  spend  their  shillings,  as  that  they  them- 
selves should.'  But  if,  instead  of  out-facing  them  with  a 
turnpike,  I  can  only  persuade  them  to  come  in  and  buy 
stones,  or  old  iron,  or  any  other  useless  thing,  out  of  my 
ground,  I  may  rob  them  to  the  same  extent,  and  be,  more- 
over, thanked  as  a  public  benefactor,  and  promoter  of  com 
mercial  prosperity.  And  this  main  question  for  the  poor 
of  England — for  the  poor  of  all  countries — is  wholly 
omitted  in  every  common  treatise  on  the  subject  of  wealth. 
Even  by  the  labourers  themselves,  the  operation  of  capital 
is  regarded  only  in  its  effect  on  their  immediate  interests ; 
never  in  the  far  more  terrific  power  of  its  appointment  of 
the  kind  and  the  object  of  labour.  It  matters  little,  ulti- 
mately, how  much  a  labourer  is  paid  for  making  anything ; 
but  it  matters  fearfully  what  the  thing  is,  which  he  is  com- 
pelled to  make.  If  his  labour  is  so  ordered  as  to  produce 
food,oand  fresh  air,  and  fresh  water,  no  matter  that  his 
wages  are  low ; — the  food  and  fresh  air  and  water  will  be 
at  last  there ;  and  he  will  at  last  get  them.  But  if  he  is 
paid  to  destroy  food  and  fresh  air,  or  to  produce  iron  bars 
instead  of  them, — the  food  and  air  will  finally  not  be  there, 
and  he  will  not  get  them,  to  his  great  and  final  incon- 
venience.    So  that,  conclusively,  in  political  as  in  house- 


PREFACE. 


hold  economy,  the  great  question  is,  not  so  much  what 
money  you  have  in  your  pocket,  as  what  you  will  buy 
with  it,  and  do  with  it. 

I  have  been  long  accustomed,  as  all  men  engaged  in 
work  of  investigation  must  be,  to  hear  my  statements 
laughed  at  for  years,  before  they  are  examined  or  believed  ■ 
and  I  am  generally  content  to  wait  the  public's  time.  But 
it  has  not  been  without  displeased  surprise  that  I  have 
found  myself  totally  unable,  as  yet,  by  any  repetition,  or 
illustration,  to  force  this  plain  thought  into  my  readers' 
heads, — that  the  wealth  of  nations,  as  of  men,  consists  in 
substance,  not  in  ciphers ;  and  that  the  real  good  of  all 
work,  and  of  all  commerce,  depends  on  the  final  worth  of 
the  thing  you  make,  or  get  by  it.  This  is  a  practical 
enough  statement,  one  would  think:  but  the  English 
public  has  been  so  possessed  by  its  modern  school  of  eco- 
nomists with  the  notion  that  Business  is  always  good, 
whether  it  be  busy  in  mischief  or  in  benefit ;  and  that 
buying  and  selling  are  always  salutary,  whatever  the 
intrinsic  worth  of  what  you  buy  or  sell, — that  it  seems 
impossible  to  gain  so  much  as  a  patient  hearing  for  any 
inquiry  respecting  the  substantial  result  of  our  eager 
modern  labours.  I  have  never  felt  more  checked  by  the 
sense  of  this  impossibility  than  in  arranging  the  heads  of 
the  following  three  lectures,  which,  though  delivered  at  con 


Xll  PREFACE. 

eiderable  intervals  of  time,  and  in  different  places,  were 
not  prepared  without  reference  to  each  other.  Their  con- 
nection would,  however,  have  been  made  far  more  distinct, 
if  I  had  not  been  prevented,  by  what  I  feel  to  be  another 
great  difficulty  in  addressing  English  audiences,  from  enforc- 
ing, with  any  decision,  the  common,  and  to  me  the  most  im- 
portant, part  of  their  subjects.  I  chiefly  desired  (as  I  have 
just  said)  to  question  my  hearers — operatives,  merchants, 
and  soldiers,  as  to  the  ultimate  meaning  of  the  business  they 
had  in  hand ;  and  to  know  from  them  what  they  expected 
or  intended  their  manufacture  to  come  to,  their  selling  to 
come  to,  and  their  killing  to  come  to.  That  appeared  the 
first  point  needing  determination  before  I  could  speak  to 
them  with  any  real  utility  or  effect.  '  You  craftsmen — sales- 
men— swordsmen, — do  but  tell  me  clearly  what  you  want, 
then,  if  I  can  say  anything  to  help  you,  I  will ;  and  if  not,  I 
will  account  to  you  as  I  best  may  for  my  inability.'  But 
in  order  to  put  this  question  into  any  terms,  one  had  first 
of  all  to  face  the  difficulty  just  spoken  of — to  me  for  the 
present  insuperable, — the  difficulty  of  knowing  whether  to 
address  one's  audience  as  believing,  or  not  believing,  iu 
any  other  world  than  this.  For  if  you  address  any  average 
modern  English  company  as  believing  in  an  Eternal  life, 
and  endeavour  to  draw  any  conclusions,  from  this  assumed 
belief,  as  to  their  present  business,  they  will  forthwith  teU 


PREFACE.  XLH 

you  that  what  you  say  is  very  beautiful,  but  it  is  not 
practical.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  frankly  address  them 
as  unbelievers  in  Eternal  life,  and  try  to  draw  any  con- 
Bequences  from  that  unbelief, — they  immediately  hold  you 
for  an  accursed  person,  and  shake  off  the  dust  from  their 
feet  at  you.  And  the  more  I  thought  over  what  I  had  got 
to  say,  the  less  I  found  I  could  say  it,  without  some  refer- 
ence to  this  intangible  or  intractable  part  of  the  subject. 
]t  made  all  the  difference,  in  asserting  any  principle  of  war, 
whether  one  assumed  that  a  discharge  of  artillery  would 
merely  knead  down  a  certain  quantity  of  red  clay  into  a 
level  line,  as  in  a  brick  field ;  or  whether,  out  of  every 
separately  Christian-named  portion  of  the  ruinous  heap, 
there  went  out,  into  the  smoke  and  dead-fallen  air  of  battle, 
some  astonished  condition  of  soul,  unwillingly  released. 
It  made  all  the  difference,  in  speaking  of  the  possible  range 
of  commerce,  whether  one  assumed  that  all  bargains  re- 
lated only  to  visible  property — or  whether  property,  for 
the  present  invisible,  but  nevertheless  real,  was  elsewhere 
purchaseable  on  other  terms.  It  made  all  the  difference, 
in  addressing  a  body  of  men  subject  to  considerable  hard- 
ship, and  having  to  find  some  way  out  of  it — whether  one 
could  confidentlv  say  to  them,  '  My  friends, — you  have 
only  to  die,  and  all  will  be  right;'  or  whether  one  had  any 
secret  misgiving  that  such  advice  was  more  blessed  to  hiro 


XIV  PREFACE. 

that  gav3,  than  to  him  that  took  it.  And  therefore  the 
deliberate  reader  will  find,  throughout  these  lectures,  a 
hesitation  in  driving  points  home,  and  a  pausing  short  of 
conclusions  which  he  will  feel  I  would  fain  have  come  to ; 
hesitation  which  arises  wholly  from  this  uncertainty  of  my 
hearers'  temper.  For  I  do  not  now  speak,  nor  have  I  evei 
spoken,  since  the  time  of  first  forward  youth,  in  any  prose 
lyting  temper,  as  desiring  to  persuade  any  one  of  what,  iD 
such  matters,  I  thought  myself;  but,  whomsoever  I  ven- 
ture to  address,  I  take  for  the  time  his  creed  as  I  find  it , 
and  endeavour  to  push  it  into  such  vital  fruit  as  it  seems 
capable  of.  Thus,  it  is  a  creed  with  a  great  part  of  the 
existing  English  people,  that  they  are  in  possession  of  a 
book  which  tells  them,  straight  from  the  lips  of  God  all 
they  ought  to  do,  and  need  to  know.  I  have  read  that 
book,  with  as  much  care  as  most  of  them,  for  some  forty 
years ;  and  am  thankful  that,  on  those  who  trust  it,  I  can 
press  its  pleadings.  My  endeavour  has  been  uniformly  to 
make  them  trust  it  more  deeply  than  they  do ;  trust  it, 
not  in  their  own  favourite  verses  only,  but  in  the  sum  of 
all ;  trust  it  not  as  a  fetish  or  talisman,  which  they  are  to 
be  saved  by  daily  repetitions  of;  but  as  a  Captain's  order, 
to  be  heard  and  obeyed  at  their  peril.  I  was  always  en- 
couraged by  supposing  my  hearers  to  hold  such  belief.  Tc 
these,  if  to  any,  I  once  had  hope  of  addressing,  with  ao 


PREFACE.  XV 

ceptance,  words  which  insisted  on  the  guilt  of  pride,  and 
the  futility  of  avarice;  from  these,  if  from  any,  I  once  ex- 
pected ratification  of  a  political  economy,  which  asserted 
that  the  life  was  more  than  the  meat,  and  the  body  than 
raiment;  and  these,  it  once  seemed  to  me,  I  might  ask 
without  accusation  of  fanaticism,  not  merely  in  doctrine  of 
the  lips,  but  in  the  bestowal  of  their  heart's  treasure,  to 
separate  themselves  from  the  crowd  of  whom  it  is  written, 
*  After  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek.' 

It  cannot,  however,  be  assumed,  with  any  semblance  of 
reason,  that  a  general  audience  is  now  wholly,  or  even  in 
majority,  composed  of  these  religious  persons.  A  large 
portion  must  always  consist  of  men  who  admit  no  such 
creed ;  or  who,  at  least,  are  inaccessible  to  appeals  founded 
on  it.  And  as,  with  the  so-called  Christian,  I  desired  to 
plead  for  honest  declaration  and  fulfilment  of  his  belief  in 
life, — with  the  so-called  Infidel,  I  desired  to  plead  for  an 
honest  declaration  and  fulfilment  of  his  belief  in  death. 
The  dilemma  is  inevitable.  Men  must  either  hereafter 
live,  or  hereafter  die ;  fate  may  be  bravely  met,  and  con 
duct  wisely  ordered,  on  either  expectation;  but  never  in 
hesitation  between  ungrasped  hope,  and  uncon  fronted  fear. 
We  usually  believe  in  immortality,  so  far  as  to  avoid  pre- 
paration for  death ;  and  in  mortality,  so  far  as  to  avoid  pre- 
paration for  anything  after  death.    Whereas,  a  wise  man  will 


m  PBEFACK. 

at  least  hold  himself  prepared  for  one  or  other  of  two  events 
of  which  one  or  other  is  inevitable ;  and  will  have  all  things 
in  order,  for  his  sleep,  or  in  readiness,  for  his  awakening. 

Nov  have  we  any  right  to  call  it  an  ignoble  judgment, 
if  he  determine  to  put  them  in  order,  as  for  sleep.  A  brave 
belief  in  life  is  indeed  an  enviable  state  of  mind,  but,  as 
far  as  I  can  discern,  an  unusual  one.  I  know  few  Chris- 
tians so  convinced  of  the  splendour  of  the  rooms  in  their 
Father's  house,  as  to  be  happier  when  their  friends  are 
called  to  those  mansions,  than  they  would  have  been  if 
the  Queen  had  sent  for  them  to  live  at  court:  nor  has 
the  Church's  most  ardent  '  desire  to  depart,  and  be  with 
Christ,'  ever  cured  it  of  the  singular  habit  of  putting  on 
mourning  for  every  person  summoned  to  such  departure. 
On  the  contrary,  a  brave  belief  in  death  has  been  assu- 
redly held  by  many  not  ignoble  persons,  and  it  is  a  sign 
of  the  last  depravity  in  the  Church  itself,  when  it  assumes 
that  such  a  belief  is  inconsistent  with  either  purity  of 
character,  or  energy  of  hand.  The  shortness  of  life  is 
not,  to  any  rational  person,  a  conclusive  reason  for  wasting 
the  space  of  it  which  may  be  granted  him ;  nor  does  the 
anticipation  of  death  to-morrow  suggest,  to  any  one  but  a 
drunkard,  the  expediency  of  drunkenness  to-day.  To 
teach  that  there  is  no  device  in  the  grave,  may  indeed 
make  the  deviceless  person  more  contented  in  his  dullness ; 


PREFACE.  XVU 

but  it  will  make  the  deviser  only  more  earnest  in  devising 
nor  is  human  conduct  likely,  in  every  case,  to  be  purer 
under  the  conviction  that  all  its  evil  may  in  a  moment  be 
pardoned,  and  all  its  wrong-doing  in  a  moment  redeemed ; 
and  that  the  sigh  of  repentance,  which  purges  the  guilt 
of  the  past,  will  waft  the  soul  into  a  felicity  which  forgets 
its  pain, — than  it  may  be  under  the  sterner,  and  to  many 
not  unwise  minds,  more  probable,  apprehension,  that 
'  what  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap' — or  others 
reap, — when  he,  the  living  seed  of  pestilence,  walketh  no 
more  in  darkness,  but  lies  down  therein. 

But  to  men  whose  feebleness  of  sight,  or  bitterness  oi 
soul,  or  the  offence  given  by  the  conduct  of  those  who 
claim  higher  hope,  may  have  rendered  this  painful  creed 
the  only  possible  one,  there  is  an  appeal  to  be  made,  more 
secure  in  its  ground  than  any  which  can  be  addressed  to 
happier  persons.  I  would  fain,  if  I  might  offencelessly, 
have  spoken  to  them  as  if  none  others  heard ;  and  have 
said  thus :  Hear  me,  you  dying  men,  who  will  soon  be 
deaf  for  ever.  For  these  others,  at  your  right  hand  and 
your  left,  who  look  forward  to  a  state  of  infinite  existence, 
in  which  all  their  errors  will  be  overruled,  and  all  theii 
faults  forgiven ;  for  these,  who,  stained  and  blackened  in 
the  battle  smoke  of  mortality,  have  but  to  dip  themselves 
foi  an  instant  in  the  font  of  death,  and  to  ri«^  reneweJ  jf 


XV111  PEEFACB. 

plumage,  as  a  dove  that  is  covered  with  silver,  and  her 
feathers  like  gold;  for  these,  indeed,  it  may  be  permissible 
to  waste   their  numbered   moments,  through   faith   in   a 
future  of  innumerable  hours;  to  these,  in  their  weakness, 
it   may  be   conceded   that  they  should   tamper  with   sin 
which  can   only  bring  forth  fruit  of  righteousness,  and 
profit  by  the  iniquity  which,  one  day,  will  be  remembered 
no  more.    «En   them,  it  may  be  no   sign  of  hardness   of 
heart  to   neglect  the  poor,  over  whom   they  know  their 
Master  is  watching;    and  to   leave  those   to   perish  tem- 
porarily,   who   cannot   perish    eternally.      But,    for  you, 
there  is  no  such  hope,  and  therefore  no  such  excuse.     This 
fate,  which  you  ordain  for  the  wretched,  you  believe  to  be 
all   their  inheritance ;   you    may  crush   them,  before  the 
moth,  and  they  will    never  rise  to   rebuke    you ; — their 
breath,  which  fails   for  lack  of  food,  once  expiring,  will 
never  be  recalled  to  whisper  against  you  a  word  of  accus- 
ing;— they  and  you,  as  you  think,  shall  lie  down  together 
in  the  dust,  and   the  worms  cover  you; — and   for   them 
there  shall  be  no  consolation,  and  on  you  no  vengeance, — 
only  the  question  murmured  above  your  grave :     '  Who 
shall   repay    him  what   he   hath   done  ? '     Is  it  therefore 
easier  for  you  in  your  heart  to  inflict  the  sorrow  for  which 
there  is  no  remedy  ?     Will  you  take,  wantonly,  this  little 
all  of.  his  life  from  your  poor  brother,  and  make  his  brief 


TREFACE.  XIX 


hours  long   to  him  with  pain?      Will   you  be  readier  to 

the  injustice  which  can  never  be  redressed ;  and  niggardly  of 

mercy  which  you  can  bestow  but  once,  and  which,  refusing, 

you  refuse  for  ever  ?     I  think  better  of  you,  even  of  the 

most  selfish,  than  that  you  would  do  this,  well  understood. 

And  for  yourselves,  it  seems  to  me,  the.  question  becomes 

not  less  grave,  in  these  curt  limits.     If  your  life  were  but  a 

fever  fit, — the  madness  of  a  night,  whose  follies  were  all  to 

be  forgotten  in  the  dawn,  it  might  matter  little  how  you 

fretted  away  the  sickly  hours, — what  toys  you  snatched  at, 

or  let  fall, — what  visions  you  followed  wistfully  with  the 

deceived  eyes  of  sleepless  phrenzy.     Is  the  earth  only  an 

hospital?     Play,  if  you  care  to  play,  on  the  floor  of  the 

hospital  dens.     Knit  its  straw  into  what  crowns  please  you  ; 

gather  the  dust  of  it  for  treasure,  and  die  rich  in  that, 

clutching  at  the  black  motes  in  the  air  with  your  dying 

hands ; — and  yet,  it  may  be  well  with  you.     But  if  this  life 

be  no  dream,  and  the  world  no  hospital ;  if  all  the  peace  and 

power  and  joy  you  can  ever  win,  must  be  won  now ;  and 

all  fruit  of  victory  gathered  here,  or  never  ; — will  you  still, 

throughout  the  puny  totality  of  your  life,  weary  yourselves 

in  the  fire  for  vanity  ?     If  there  is  no  rest  which  remain- 

eth  for  you,  is  there  none  you  might  presently  take?  was 

this  grass  of  the  earth  made  green  for  your  shroud  only, 

not  for  your  bed?  and  can  you  never  lie  down  tjpon  it,  but 


PREFACE. 


only  under  it?  The  heathen, to  whose  creed  you  have 
returned,  thought  not  so.  They  knew  that  life  brought  ita 
contest,  but  they  expected  from  it  also  the  crown  of  all 
contest :  No  proud  one !  no  jewelled  circlet  flaming 
through  Heaven  above  the  height  of  the  unmerited  throne, 
only  some  few  leaves  of  wild  olive,  cool  to  the  tired  brow, 
through  a  few  years  of  peace.  It  should  have  been  of 
gold,  they  thought ;  but  Jupiter  was  poor ;  this  was  the 
best  the  god  could  give  them.  Seeking  a  greater  than 
this,  they  had  known  it  a  mockery.  Not  in  war,  not  in 
wealth,  not  in  tyranny,  was  there  any  happiness  to  be 
found  for  them — only  in  kindly  peace,  fruitful  and  free. 
The  wreath  was  to  be  of  wild  olive,  mark  you  : — the  tree 
that  grows  carelessly,  tufting  the  rocks  with  no  vivid  bloom, 
no  verdure  of  branch  ;  only  with  soft  snow  of  blossom, 
and  scarcely  fulfilled  fruit,  mixed  with  grey  leaf  and  thorn- 
set  stem;  no  fastening  of  diadem  for  you  but  with  such 
sharp  embroidery  !  But  this,  such  as  it  is,  you  may  win 
while  yet  you  live;  type  of  grey  honour  and  sweet  rest.* 
Free-heartedness,  and  graciousness,  and  undisturbed  trust, 
and  requited  love,  and  the  sight  of  the  peace  of  others,  and 
the  ministry  to  their  pain  ; — these,  and  the  blue  sky  above 
vou,  and  the  sweet  waters  and  flowers  of  the  earth  beneath ; 

•  fit\iT6e.aaa,  diQ\u)v  y'  Ivtxw. 


PREFAOK.  m 


and  mysteries  and  presences,  innumerable,  of  living  things, 
— these  may  yet  be  here  your  riches ;  untormenting  and 
divine :  serviceable  for  the  life  that  now  is ;  nor,  it  may 
be,  without  promise  of  that  which  is  to  come. 


CONTENTS. 


-o- 


LECTURE    I. 

PAGE 
«r  3 

Work 


LECTURE    II. 

47 
TRimo 

LECTURE    III. 
Wak  


WORK. 


LECTURE  I. 

WORK. 

{Delivered  before  the  Working  Bfen's  Institute,  at  Camberwell.) 

My  Ffjends, — I  have  not  come  among  you  to-night  to 
endeavour  to  give  you  an  entertaining  lecture ;  but  to  tell  you 
a  few  plain  facts,  and  ass  you  vsome  plain,  hut  necessary 
questions.  I  have  seen  and  known  too  much  of  the  struggle 
for  life  among  our  labouring  population,  to  feel  at  ease,  even 
under  any  circumstances,  in  inviting  them  to  dwell  on  the 
trivialities  of  my  own  studies;  but,  much  more,  as  I  meet  to- 
night, for  the  first  time,  the  members  of  a  working  Institute 
established  in  the  district  in  which  I  have  passed  the  greater 
part  of  my  life,  I  am  desirous  that  we  should  at  once  under- 
stand each  other,  on  graver  matters.  I  would  fain  tell  you, 
with  what  feelings,  and  with  what  hope,  I  regard  this  Insti- 
tution, as  one  of  many  such,  now  happily  established  through 
out  England,  as  well  as  in  other  countries; — Institutions 
which  are  preparing  the  way  for  a  great  change  in  all  the 
circumstances  of  industrial  life;  but  of  which  the  success 
must  wholly  depend  upon  our  clearly  understanding  the  cir 


4  THE  CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

cumstances  and  necessary  limits  of  this  change.  No  teacher 
can  truly  promote  the  cause  of  education,  until  he  knows  the 
conditions  of  the  life  for  which  that  education  is  to  prepare 
his  pupil.  And  the  fact  that  he  is  called  upon  to  address 
you,  nominally,  as  a  '  Working  Class,'  must  compel  him,  if 
he  is  in  any  wise  earnest  or  thoughtful,  to  enquire  in  the  out- 
set, on  what  you  yourselves  suppose  this  class  distinction  has 
been  founded  in  the  past,  and  must  he  founded  in  the  future. 
The  manner  of  the  amusement,  and  the  matter  of  the  teach- 
ing, which  any  of  us  can  offer  you,  must  depend  wholly  on 
our  first  understanding  from  you,  whether  you  think  the 
distinction  heretofore  drawn  between  working  men  and 
others,  is  truly  or  falsely  founded.  Do  you  accept  it  as  it 
stands?  do  you  wish  it  to  be  modified?  or  do  you  think  the 
object  of  education  is  to  efface  it,  and  make  us  forget  it  for 
ever? 

Let  me  make  myself  more  distinctly  understood.  We  call 
this — you  and  I — a  '  Working  Men's '  Institute,  and  our  col- 
lege in  London,  a  '  Working  Men's '  College.  Now,  how  do 
you  consider  that  these  several  institutes  differ,  or  ought  to 
differ,  from  '  idle  men's '  institutes  and  '  idle  men's '  colleges  ? 
Or  by  what  other  word  than  'idle'  shall  I  distinguish  those 
whom  the  happiest  and  wisest  of  working  men  do  not  object 
to  call  the  'Upper  Classes?'  Are  there  really  upper 
classes, — are  there  lower?     How  much  should  they  always 


WORK.  5 

be  elevated,  how  much  always  depressed?  And,  gentlemen 
and  ladies — I  pray  those  of  you  who  are  here  to  forgive  me 
the  offence  there  may  be  in  what  I  am  going  to  say.  It  is 
not  I  who  wish  to  say  it.  Bitter  voices  say  it ;  voices  of 
battle  and  of  famine  through  all  the  world,  which  must  be 
heard  some  day,  whoever  keeps  silence.  Neither  is  it  to  you 
specially  that  I  say  it.  I  am  sure  that  most  now  present 
know  their  duties  of  kindness,  and  fulfil  them,  better  perhaps 
than  I  do  mine.  But  I  speak  to  you  as  representing  your 
whole  class,  which  errs,  I  know,  chiefly  by  thoughtlessness, 
but  not  therefore  the  less  terribly.  Wilful  error  is  limited 
by  the  will,  but  what  limit  is  there  to  that  of  which  we  are 
unconscious? 

Bear  with  me,  therefore,  while  I  turn  to  these  workmen, 
and  ask  them,  also  as  representing  a  great  multitude,  what 
they  think  the  'upper  classes'  are,  and  ought  to  be,  in  rela- 
tion to  them.  Answer,  you  workmen  who  are  here,  as  you 
would  among  yourselves,  frankly;  and  tell  me  how  you 
would  have  me  call  those  classes.  Am  I  to  call  them — would 
you  think  me  right  in  calling  them — the  idle  classes?  I 
think  you  would  feel  somewhat  uneasy,  aad  as  if  I  were  not 
treating  my  subject  honestly,  or  speaking  from  my  heart,  if  I 
went  on  under  the  supposition  that  all  rich  people  were  idle. 
You  would  be  both  unjust  and  unwise  if  you  allowed  me  to 
say  that; — not  less  unjust  than  the  rich  people  who  say  that 


6  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

all  the  poor  are  idle,  and  will  never  work  if  tkey  can  nulp  it, 
or  more  than  they  can  help. 

For  indeed  the  fact  is,  that  there  are  idle  poor  and  idle 
rich  ;  and  there  are  busy  poor  and  busy  rich.  Many  a  beggar 
is  as  lazy  as  if  he  had  ten  thousand  a  year;  and  many  a  man 
of  large  fortune  is  busier  than  his  errand-boy,  and  never 
would  think  of  stopping  in  the  street  to  play  marbles.  So 
that,  in  a  large  view,  the  distinction  between  workers  and 
idlers,  as  between  knaves  and  honest  men,  runs  through  the 
very  heart  and  innermost  economies  of  men  of  all  ranks  and 
in  all  positions.  There  is  a  working  class — strong  and 
happy — among  both  rich  and  poor ;  there  is  an  idle  class — 
weak,  wicked,  and  miserable — among  both  rich  and  poo'' 
And  the  worst  of  the  misunderstandings  arising  between  the 
two  orders  come  of  the  unlucky  fact  that  the  wise  of  one 
class  habitually  contemplate  the  foolish  of  the  other.  If  the 
busy  rich  people  watched  and  rebuked  the  idle  rich  people, 
all  would  be  right ;  and  if  the  busy  poor  people  watched  and 
rebuked  the  idle  poor  people,  all  would  be  right.  But  each 
class  has  a  tendency  to  look  for  the  faults  of  the  other.  A 
hard-working  man  of  property  is  particularly  offended  by  an 
idle  beggar ;  and  an  orderly,  but  poor,  workman  is  naturally 
intolerant  of  the  licentious  luxury  of  the  rich.  And  what  ia 
severe  judgment  in  the  minds  of  the  just  men  of  either  class, 
becomes  fierce  enmity  in  the  unjust — but  among  the  unjust 


WORK.  7 

only.  None  but  the  dissolute  among  the  poor  look  upon  the 
rich  as  their  natural  enemies,  or  desire  to  pillage  their  houses 
and  divide  their  property.  None  but  the  dissolute  among 
the  rich  speak  in  opprobrious  terms  of  the  vices  and  follies 
of  the  poor. 

There  is,  then,  no  class  distinction  between  idle  and  indus- 
trious people ;  and  I  am  going  to-night  to  speak  only  of  the 
industrious.  The  idle  people  we  will  put  out  of  our  thoughts 
at  once — they  are  mere  nuisances — what  ought  to  be  done 
with  them,  we'll  talk  of  at  another  time.  But  there  are  class 
distinctions  among  the  industrious  themselves; — tremendous 
distinctions,  which  rise  and  fall  to  every  degree  in  the  infinite 
thermometer  of  human  pain  and  of  human  power — distinc- 
tions of  high  and  low,  of  lost  and  won,  to  the  whole  reach  of 
man's  soul  and  body. 

These  separations  we  will  study,  and  the  laws  of  them, 
among  energetic  men  only,  who,  whether  they  work 
or  whether  they  play,  put  their  strength  into  the 
work,  and  their  strength  into  the  game;  being  in  the  fWJ 
sense  of  the  word  'industrious,'  one  way  or  another— 
with  a  purpose,  or  without.  And  these  distinctions  are 
mainly  four : 

I.  Between  those  who  work,  and  those  who  play. 

II.  Between  those  who  produce  the  means  of  life,  and 
those  who  consume  them. 


8  THTC    CROWN    OF    WILD    OUVE. 

HI.  Between  those  who  work  with  the  head,  and  those 
who  work  with  the  hand. 

IV.  Between  those  who  work  wisely,  and  who  work  fool- 
ishly. 

For  easier  memory,  let  us  say  we  are  going  to  oppose,  in 
our  examination, — 

I.  Work  to  play ; 
II.  Production  to  consumption ; 
HI.  Head  to  hand  ;  and, 
IV.  Sense  to  nonsense. 

I.  First,  then,  of  the  distinction  between  the  classes  who 
work  and  the  classes  who  play.  Of  course  we  must  agree 
upon  a  definition  of  these  terms, — work  and  play, — before 
going  farther.  Now,  roughly,  not  with  vain  subtlety  of  defi- 
nition, but  for  plain  use  of  the  words,  'play'  is  an  exertion 
of  body  or  mind,  made  to  please  ourselves,  and  with  no 
determined  end ;  and  woi'k  is  a  thing  done  because  it 
ought  to  be  done,  and  with  a  determined  end.  You  play,  as 
you  call  it,  at  cricket,  for  instance.  That  is  as  hard  woi'k  as 
anything  else ;  but  it  amuses  you,  and  it  has  no  result  but 
the  amusement.  If  it  were  done  as  an  ordered  form  of  exer- 
cise, for  health's  sake,  it  would  become  work  directly.  So, 
in  like  manner,  whatever  we  do  to  please  ourselves,  and  only 
for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure,  not  for  an  ultimate  object,  is  '  play,' 
the  'pleasing  thing,'  not  the  useful  thing.     Play  may  be  useful 


W0EK.  i 

in  a  secondary  sense  (nothing  is  indeed  more  useful  or  neces- 
sary) ;  but  the  use  of  it  depends  on  its  being  spontaneous. 

Let  us,  then,  enquire  together  what  sort  of  games  the  play- 
jing  class  in  England  spend  their  lives  in  playing  at. 

The  first  of  all  English  games  is  making  money.  That  is 
n  all-absorbing  game ;  and  we  knock  each  other  down  often- 
er  in  playing  at  that  than  at  foot-ball,  or  any  other  roughest 
sport;  and  it  is  absolutely  without  purpose;  no  one  who  en- 
gages heartily  in  that  game  ever  knows  why.  Ask  a  great 
money-maker  what  he  wants  to  do  with  his  money — he  never 
knows.  He  doesn't  make  it  to  ."^  anything  with  it.  He  gets 
it  only  that  he  may  get  it.  '  What  will  you  make  of  what 
you  have  got?'  you  ask.  '"Well,  I'll  get  more,'  he  says. 
Just  as,  at  cricket,  you  get  more  runs.  There's  no  use  in 
the  runs,  but  to  get  more  of  them  than  other  people  is 
the  game.  And  there's  no  use  in  the  money,  but  to  have 
more  of  it  than  other  people  is  the  game.  So  all  that  great 
foul  city  of  London  there, — rattling,  growling,  smoking, 
stinking, — a  ghastly  heap  of  fermenting  brickwork,  pouring 
out  poison  at  every  pore, — you  fancy  it  is  a  city  of  work? 
Not  a  street  of  it!  It  is  a  great  city  of  play;  very 
nasty  play,  and  very  hard  play,  but  still  play.  It  is  only 
Lord's  cricket  ground  without  the  turf, — a  huge  billiard  table 
without  the  cloth,  and  with  pockets  as  deep  as  the  bottomleai 

pit;  but  mainly  a  billiard  table,  after  all. 

1* 


10  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD   OLIVE. 

Well,  the  first  great  English  game  is  this  playing  at  coun- 
ters. It  differs  from  the  rest  in  that  it  appears  always  to  be 
producing  money,  while  every  other  game  is  expensive.  But 
it  does  not  always  produce  money.  There's  a  great  lifter- 
ence  between  'winning'  money  and  'making'  it;  a  great 
difference  between  getting  it  out  of  another  man's  pocket 
into  ours,  or  filling  both.  Collecting  money  is  by  no  means 
the  same  thing  as  making  it ;  the  tax-gatherer's  house  is 
not  the  Mint ;  and  much  of  the  apparent  gain  (so  called), 
in  commerce,  is  only  a  form  of  taxation  on  carriage  or 
exchange. 

Our  next  great  English  game,  however,  hunting  and  shoot- 
ing, is  costly  altogether ;  and  how  much  we  are  fined  for  it 
annually  in  land,  horses,  gamekeepers,  and  game  laws,  and  all 
else  that  accompanies  that  beautiful  and  special  English 
game,  I  will  not  endeavour  to  count  now :  but  note  only  that, 
except  for  exercise,  this  is  not  merely  a  useless  game,  but  a 
deadly  one,  to  all  connected  with  it.  For  through  horse- 
racing,  you  get  every  form  of  what  the  higher  classes  every- 
where call  'Play,'  in  distinction  from  all  other  plays;  that 
is — gambling;  by  no  means  a  beneficial  or  recreative  game: 
and,  through  game-preserving,  you  get  also  some  curious  lay 
ing  out  of  ground ;  that  beautiful  arrangement  of  dwelling- 
house  for  man  and  beast,  by  which  we  have  grouse  and  black- 
cock— so  many  brace  to  the  acre,  and  men  and  women — so 


WORK.  1 X 

many  brace  to  the  garret.  I  often  wonder  what  the  argelio 
builders  and  surveyors — the  angelic  builders  who  build  the 
'many  mansions'  up  above  there  ;  and  the  angelic  surveyors, 
who  measured  that  four-square  city  with  their  measuring 
reeds — I  wonder  what  they  think,  or  are  supposed  to  think, 
of  the  laying  out  of  ground  by  this  nation,  which  has  set  it- 
self, as  it  seems,  literally  to  accomplish,  word  for  word,  or 
rather  fact  for  word,  in  the  persons  of  those  poor  whom  its 
Master  left  to  represent  him,  what  that  Master  said  of  him- 
self— that  foxes  and  birds  had  homes,  but  He  none. 

Then,  next  to  the  gentlemen's  game  of  hunting,  we  must 
put  the  ladies'  game  of  dressing.  It  is  not  the  cheapest  of 
games.  I  saw  a  brooch  at  a  jeweller's  in  Bond  Street  a  fort- 
night ago,  not  an  inch  wide,  and  without  any  singular  jewel 
in  it,  yet  worth  3,0007.  And  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  what  this 
'play'  costs,  altogether,  in  England,  France,  and  Bussia  an- 
nually. But  it  is  a  pretty  game,  and  on  certain  terms,  I  like 
it ;  nay,  I  don't  see  it  played  quite  as  much  as  I  would  fain 
have  it.  You  ladies  like  to  lead  the  fashion: — by  all  means 
lead  it — lead  it  thoroughly,  lead  it  far  enough.  Dress  your- 
selves nicely,  and  dress  everybody  else  nicely.  Lead  the 
fashions  for  the  poor  first;  make  them  look  well,  and  you 
yourselves  will  look,  in  ways  of  which  you  haw  now  no  con 
ception,  all  the  better.  The  fashions  you  have  set  for  soma 
time  among  your  peasantry  are  not  pretty  ones;  their  doub 


12  THE    CKOWX    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

lets  rare  too  irregularly  slashed,  and  the  wind  blows  toe 
frankly  through  them. 

Then  there  are  other  games,  wild  enough,  as  I  could  show 
you  if  I  had  time. 

There's  playing  at  literature,  and  playing  at  art — very  dif 
ferent,  both,  from  working  at  literature,  or  working  at  art, 
but  I've  no  time  to  speak  of  these.  I  pass  to  the  greatest  of 
all — the  play  of  plays,  the  great  gentlemen's  game,  which 
ladies  like  them  best  to  play  at, — the  game  of  War.  It  is 
entrancingly  pleasant  to  the  imagination;  the  facts  of  it,  not 
always  so  pleasant.  We  dress  for  it,  however,  more  finely 
than  for  any  other  sport;  and  go  out  to  it,  not  merely  in 
scarlet,  as  to  hunt,  but  in  scarlet  and  gold,  and  all  manner  of 
fine  colours :  of  course  we  could  fight  better  in  grey,  and 
without  feathers ;  but  all  nations  have  agreed  that  it  is  good 
to  be  well  dressed  at  this  play.  Then  the  bats  and  balls  are 
very  costly  ;  our  English  and  French  bats,  with  the  balls  and 
wickets,  even  those  which  we  don't  make  any  use  of,  costing, 
I  suppose,  now  about  fifteen  millions  of  money  annually  to 
each  nation  ;  all  of  which  you  know  is  paid  for  by  hard  labour- 
er's work  in  the  furrow  and  furnace.  A  costly  game  ! — not 
to  speak  of  its  consequences;  I  will  say  at  present  nothing  of 
these.  The  mere  immediate  cost  of  all  these  plays  is  what  J 
want  you  to  consider  ;  they  all  cost  deadly  work  somewhere, 
es  many  of  us  know  too  well.     The  jewel-cutter,  whose  sight 


WORF.  13 

fails  over  the  diamonds;  the  weaver,  whose  arm  fails  ovei 
the  web ;  the  iron-forger,  whose  breath  fails  before  the  fur- 
nace— they  know  what  work  is — they,  who  have  all  the  work, 
and  none  of  the  play,  except  a  kind  they  have  named  for 
themselves  down  in  the  black  north  country,  where  'play' 
means  being  laid  up  by  sickness.  It  is  a  pretty  example  for 
philologists,  of  varying  dialect,  this  change  in  the  sense  of  the 
word  'play,'  as  used  in  the  black  country  of  Birmingham,  and 
the  red  and  black  country  of  Baden  Baden.  Yes,  gentlemen, 
and  gentlewomen,  of  England,  who  think  'one  moment  im- 
am used  a  misery,  not  made  for  feeble  man,'  this  is  what  you 
have  brought  the  word  '  play  '  to  mean,  in  the  heart  of  merry 
England !  You  may  have  your  fluting  and  piping  ;  but  there 
are  sad  children  sitting  in  the  market-place,  who  iudeed  can- 
not say  to  you,  '  We  have  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not 
danced:'  but  eternally  shall  say  to  you,  'We  have  mourned 
unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  lamented.' 

This,  then,  is  the  first  distinction  between  the  '  upper  and 
lower'  classes.  And  this  is  one  which  is  by  no  means  neces- 
sary ;  which  indeed  must,  in  process  of  good  time,  be  by  all 
honest  men's  consent  abolished.  Men  will  be  taught  that  an 
existence  of  play,  sustained  by  the  blood  of  other  creatures, 
is  a  good  existence  for  gnats  and  sucking  fish  ;  but  not  for 
men:  that  neither  days,  nor  lives,  can  be  made  holy  by  doing 
••tthing  in  them  :   that  the  best  prayer  at  the  beginning  of  3 


14  THE  CROWN    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

day  is  that  we  may  not  lose  its  moments  ;  and  the  best  grace 
before  meat,  the  consciousness  that  we  have  justly  earned  our 
dinner.  And  when  we  have  this  much  of  plain  Christianity 
preached  to  us  again,  and  enough  respect  what  we  regard  aa 
inspiration,  as  not  to  think  that '  Son,  go  work  to-day  in  my 
vineyard,'  means  'Fool,  go  play  to-day  in  my  vineyard,'  we 
shall  all  be  workers,  in  one  way  or  another;  and  this  much  at 
least  of  the  distinction  between  '  upper '  and  '  lower '  forgotten* 

II.  I  pass  then  to  our  second  distinction ;  between  the 
rich  and  poor,  between  Dives  and  Lazarus, — distinction 
which  exists  more  sternly,  I  suppose,  in  this  day,  than  ever 
in  the  world,  Pagan  or  Christian,  till  now.  I  will  put  it 
sharply  before  you,  to  begin  with,  merely  by  reading  two 
paragraphs  which  I  cut  from  two  papers  that  lay  on  my 
breakfast  table  on  the  same  morning,  the  25th  of  Xovember, 
1864.  The  piece  about  the  rich  Russian  at  Paris  is  common- 
place enough,  and  stupid  besides  (for  fifteen  francs, — 
12s.  6c?., — is  nothing  for  a  rich  man  to  give  for  a  couple  of 
peaches,  out  of  season).  Still,  the  two  paragraphs  printed 
on  the  same  day  are  worth  putting  side  by  side, 

'Such  a  man  is  now  here.  He  is  a  Russian,  and,  with 
your  permission,  we  will  call  him  Count  Teufelskine.  In 
dress  he  is  sublime ;  art  is  considered  in  that  toilet,  the  har- 
mony of  colour  respected,  the  chiar1  oscuro  evident  in  well- 
selected  contrast.     In  manners  he  is  dignified  —nay,  perhaps 


WORK.  15 

apathetic ;  nothing  disturbs  the  placid  serenity  of  that  calm 
exterior.  One  day  our  friend  breakfasted  chez  Bignon. 
When  the  bill  came  he  read,  "Two  peaches,  15f."  He  paid. 
"Peaches  scarce,  I  presume?''  was  his  sole  remark.  "No, 
sir,"  replied  the  waiter,  "  but  Teufelskines  are." '  Tele- 
graph, November  25,  1864. 

'  Yesterday  morning,  at  eight  o'clock,  a  woman,  passing 
a  dung  heap  in  the  stone  yard  near  the  recently-erected 
almshouses  in  Shadwell  Gap,  High  Street,  Shadwel!,  called 
the  attention  of  a  Thames  police-constable  to  a  man  in  a  sit- 
ting position  on  the  dung  heap,  and  said  she  was  afraid  he 
was  dead.  Her  fears  proved  to  be  true.  The  wretched 
creature  appeared  to  have  been  dead  several  hours.  He 
had  perished  of  cold  and  wet,  and  the  rain  had  been  beating 
down  on  him  all  night.  The  deceased  was  a  bone-picker. 
He  was  in  the  lowest  stage  of  poverty,  poorly  clad,  and 
half-starved.  The  police  had  frequently  driven  him  away 
from  the  stone  yard,  between  sunset  and  sunrise,  and  told 
him  to  go  home.  He  selected  a  most  desolate  spot  for  his 
wretched  death.  A  penny  and  some  bones  were  found  in 
his  pockets.  The  deceased  was  between  fifty  and  sixty  years 
of  age.  Inspector  Roberts,  of  the  K  division,  1ms  given 
directions  for  inquiries  to  be  made  at  the  lodging-houses  res- 
pecting the  deceased,  to  ascertain  his  identity  if  possible.' — 
Morning  Post,  November  25,  18G4 


16  THE   CROWN    OF    WILL    OLIVE. 

You  have  the  separation  thus  in  brief  compass ;  and  I  want 
you  to  take  notice  of  the  '  a  penny  and  some  bones  were 
found  in  his  pockets,'  and  to  compare  it  with  this  third  state 
ment,  from  the  Telegraph  of  January  16th  of  this  year : — 

'  Again,  the  dietary  scale  for  adult  and  juvenile  pauper* 
Was  drawn  uj)  by  the  most  conspicuous  political  economists 
in  England.  It  is  low  in  quantity,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  sup- 
port nature ;  yet  within  ten  years  of  the  passing  of  the  Poor 
Law  Act,  we  heard  of  the  paupers  in  the  Andover  Union 
gnawing  the  scraps  of  putrid  flesh  and  sucking  the  marrow 
from  the  bones  of  horses  which  they  were  employed  to 
crush.' 

You  see  my  reason  for  thinking  that  our  Lazarus  of  Chris- 
tianity has  some  advantage  over  the  Jewish  one.  Jewish 
Lazarus  expected,  or  at  least  prayed,  to  be  fed  with  crumbe 
from  the  rich  man's  table ;  but  our  Lazarus  is  fed  with 
crumbs  from  the  dog's  table. 

Now  this  distinction  between  rich  and  poor  rests  on  two 
bases.  Within  its  proper  limits,  on  a  basis  which  is  lawful 
and  everlastingly  necessary  ;  beyond  them,  on  a  basis  unlaw- 
ful, and  everlastingly  corrupting  the  frame- work  of  society. 
The  lawful  basis  of  wealth  is,  that  a  man  who  works  should  be 
paid  the  fair  value  of  his  work  ;  and  that  if  he  does  not  choose 
to  spend  it  to-day,  he  should  have  free  leave  to  keep  it.  and 
spend    it    to-morrow.      Thus,  an    industrious   man   working 


WOKK.  17 

daily,  and  laying  by  \laily,  attains  at  last  the  possession  ot'ai. 
accumulated  sum  of  wealth,  to  which  he  has  absolute  right. 
The  idle  person  who  will  not  work,  and  the  wasteful  person 
who  lays  nothing  by,  at  the  end  of  the  same  time  will  be  dou- 
bly poor — poor  in  possessiou,  and  dissolute  in  moral  habit ; 
and  he  will  then  naturally  covet  the  money  which  the  other 
has  saved.  And  if  he  is  then  allowed  to  attack  the  other, 
and  rob  him  of  his  well-earned  wealth,  there  is  no  more 
any  motive  for  saving,  or  any  reward  for  good  conduct ; 
and  all  society  is  thereupon  dissolved,  or  exists  only  in  sys- 
tems of  rapine.  Therefore  the  first  necessity  of  social  life 
is  the  clearness  of  national  conscience  in  enforcing  the 
law — that  he  should  keep  who  has  justly  earned. 

That  la,w,  I  say,  is  the  proper  basis  of  distinction  between 
rich  and  poor.  But  there  is  also  a  false  basis  of  distinc- 
ion  ;  namely,  the  power  held  over  those  who  earn  wealth 
by  those  who  levy  or  exact  it.  There  will  be  always  a  num- 
ber of  men  who  would  fain  set  themselves  to  the  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  as  the  sole  object  of  their  lives.  Neces- 
sarily, that  class  of  men  is  an  uneducated  class,  inferior  in 
intellect,  and  more  or  less  cowardly.  It  is  physically 
impossible  for  a  well-educated,  intellectual,  or  brave  man 
to  make  money  the  chief  object  of  his  thoughts;  as  physi- 
cally impossible  as  it  is  for  him  to  make  his  dinner  the 
principal   object    of  them.     All    healthy  people    like    theii 


18  THE    CBOWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

dinners,  but  their  dinner  is  not  the  main  object  of  their 
lives.  So  all  healthily  minded  people  like  making  moi  ey — 
ought  to  like  it,  and  to  enjoy  the  sensation  of  winning  it ; 
but  the  main  object  of  their  life  is  not  money ;  it  is  some- 
thing better  than  money.  A  good  soldier,  for  instance, 
mainly  wishes  to  do  his  fighting  well.  He  is  glad  of  his 
pay — very  properly  so,  and  justly  grumbles  when  you 
keep  him  ten  years  without  it — still,  his  main  notion  of  life 
is  to  win  battles,  not  to  be  paid  for  winning  them.  So 
of  clergymen.  They  like  pew-rents,  and  baptismal  fees, 
of  course ;  but  yet,  if  they  are  brave  and  well  educated, 
the  pew-rent  is  not  the  sole  object  of  their  lives,  and  the 
baptismal  fee  is  not  the  sole  purpose  of  the  baptism ;  the 
clergyman's  object  is  essentially  to  baptize  and  preach,  not 
to  be  paid  for  preaching.  So  of  doctors.  They  like  fees 
no  doubt, — ought  to  like  them  ;  yet  if  they  are  brave  and 
well  educated,  the  entire  object  of  their  lives  is  not  fees. 
They,  on  the  whole,  desire  to  cure  the  sick ;  and, — if  they 
^are  good  doctors,  and  the  choice  were  fairly  put  to 
them, — would  rather  cure  their  patient,  and  lose  their  fee, 
than  kill  him.  and  get  it.  And  so  with  all  other  brave  and 
rightly  trained  men  ;  their  work  is  first,  their  fee  second — 
very  important  always,  but  still  second.  But  in  every 
nation,  as  I  said,  there  are  a  vast  class  who  are  ill-edu- 
cated, cowardly,  and   more  or   less  stupid.     And  with   these 


W0HK..  19 

people,  just  as  certainly  the  fee  is  first,  and  the  work 
second,  as  wnh  brave  people  the  work  is  first  and  the  fee 
second.  And  this  is  no  small  distinction.  It  is  the  whole 
distinction  in  a  man  ;  distinction  between  life  and  death  in 
him,  between  heaven  and  hell  for  him.  You  cannot  serve 
two  masters ; — you  must  serve  one  or  other.  If  your  work 
is  first  with  you,  and  your  fee  second,  work  is  your  master, 
and  the  lord  of  work,  who  is  God.  But  if  your  fee  is 
first  with  you,  and  your  work  second,  fee  is  your  master, 
and  the  lord  of  fee,  who  is  the  Devil ;  and  not  only  the 
Devil,  but  the  lowest  of  devils — the  '  least  erected  fiend 
that  fell.'  So  there  you  have  it  in  brief  terms ;  Work 
first — you  are  God's  servants ;  Fee  first — you  are  the 
Fiend's.  And  it  makes  a  difference,  now  and  ever,  believe 
me,  whether  you  serve  Him  who  has  on  His  vesture  and 
thigh  written,  'King  of  Kings,'  and  whose  service  is  per- 
fect freedom;  or  him  on  whose  vesture  and  thigh  the 
name  is  written,  '  Slave  of  Slaves,'  and  wdiose  service  is 
perfect  slavery.  ^ 

However,  in  every  nation  there  are,  and  must  always  be 
a  certain  number  of  these  Fiend's  servants,  who  have  it 
principally  for  the  object  of  their  lives  to  make  money 
They  are  always,  as  I  said,  more  or  less  stupid,  and  can 
not  conceive  of  anything  else  so  nice  as  money.  Stupidity 
is    always    the    basis   of  I  he  Judas  bargain.     We  do  <?reat 


20  THK    CROWN    OP    WILD    OLIVE. 

injustice  to  Iscariot,  in  thinking  him  wicked  above  all  com- 
mon wickedness.  He  was  only  a  common  money-lover, 
and,  like  all  money-lovers,  didn't  understand  Christ  ; — ■ 
couldn't  make  out  the  worth  of  Him,  or  meaning  of  Him. 
lie  didn't  want  Him  to  be  killed.  He  was  horror-struck 
when  he  found  that  Christ  would  be  killed ;  threw  his 
money  away  instantly,  and  hanged  himself.  How  many  of 
our  present  money-seekers,  think  you,  would  have  the  grace 
to  hang  themselves,  whoever  was  killed  ?  But  Judas  was 
a  common,  selfish,  muddle-headed,  pilfering  fellow ;  his 
hand  always  in  the  bag  of  the  poor,  nut  caring  for  them 
He  didn't  understand  Christ; — yet  believed  in  Him,  much 
more  than  most  of  us  do ;  had  seen  Him  do  miracles, 
thought  He  was  quite  strong  enough  to  shift  for  Himself, 
and  he,  Judas,  might  as  well  make  his  own  little  bye-per- 
quisites out  of  the  affair.  Christ  would  come  out  of  it 
well  enough,  and  he  have  his  thirty  pieces.  Now,  that  is 
the  money-seeker's  idea,  all  over  the  world.  He  doesn't 
hate  Christ,  but  can't  understand  Him — doesn't  care  for 
Him — sees  no  good  in  that  benevolent  business ;  makes  hia 
own  little  job  out  of  it  at  all  events,  come  what  will.  And 
thus,  out  of  every  mass  of  men,  you  have  a  certain  num- 
ber of  bag-men — your  'fee -first'  men,  whose  main  object  ia 
to  make  money.  And  they  do  make  it — make  it  in  all 
sorts  of  unfair  waj  s,  chiefly  by  the   weight    and    force    of 


WORK. 


21 


money  itself,  or  what  is  called  the  power  of  capital ;  that  ia 
to  say,  the  power  which  money,  once  obtained,  has  over  the 
labour  of  the  poor,  so  that  the  capitalist  can  take  ail  ita 
produce  to  himself,  except  the  labourer's  food.  That  is  the 
modern  Judas's  way  of  '  carrying  the  bag,'  and  '  bearing 
what  is  put  therein.' 

Nay,  but  (it  is  asked)  how  is  that  an  unfair  advantage  ? 
Has  not  the  man  who  has  worked  for  the  money  a  right  to 
use  it  as  he  best  can  ?  No  ;  in  this  respect,  money  is  now 
exactly  what  mountain  promontories  over  public  roads  were 
ha  old  times.  The  barons  fought  for  them  fairly  : — the  strong- 
est and  cunningest  got  them  ;  then  fortified  them,  and  made 
everyone  who  passed  below  pay  toll.  Well,  capital  now  is 
exactly  what  crags  were  then.  Men  fight  fairly  (we  will,  at 
least,  grant  so  much,  though  it  is  more  than  we  ought)  for 
their  money  ;  but,  once  having  got  it,  the  fortified  millionaire 
can  make  everybody  who  passes  below  pay  toll  to  his  million, 
and  build  another  tower  of  his  money  castle.  And  I  can  tell 
you,  the  poor  vagrants  by  the  roadside  suffer  now  quite  as 
much  from  the  bag-baron,  as  ever  they  did  from  the  crag- 
baron.  Bags  and  crags  have  just  the  same  result  on  rags.  J 
have  not  time,  however,  to-night  to  show  you  in  how  many 
ways  the  power  of  capital  is  unjust ;  but  this  one  great  prin- 
ciple I  have  to  assert — you  will  find  it  quite  indisputably  true 
— that  whenever  money  is  the  principal  object  of  life  with 


22  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

either  man  or  nation,  it  is  both  got  ill,  and  spent  ill ;  and  doei 
harm  botli  in  the  getting  and  spending ;  but  when  it  is  not 
the  principal  object,  it  and  all  other  things  will  be  well  got, 
and  well  spent.  And  here  is  the  test,  with  every  man,  of 
whether  money  is  the  principal  object  with  him,  or  not.  If 
in  mid-life  he  could  pause  and  say,  "  Now  I  have  enough  to 
live  upon,  I'll  live  upon  it ;  and  having  well  earned  it,  I  will 
also  well  spend  it,  and  go  out  of  the  world  poor,  as  I  came 
into  it,"  then  money  is  not  principal  with  him ;  but  if,  having 
enough  to  live  upon  in  the  manner  befitting  his  character  and 
rank,  he  still  wants  to  make  more,  and  to  die  rich,  then  money 
is  the  principal  object  with  him,  and  it  becomes  a  curse  to 
himself,  and  generally  to  those  who  spend  it  after  him.  For 
you  know  it  must  be  spent  some  day ;  the  only  question  is 
whether  the  man  who  makes  it  shall  spend  it,  or  some  one 
else.  And  generally  it  is  better  for  the  maker  to  spend  it, 
for  he  will  know  best  its  value  and  use.  This  is  the  true  law 
of  life.  And  if  a  man  does  not  choose  thus  to  spend  his 
money,  he  must  either  hoard  it  or  lend  it,  and  the  worst  thing 
he  can  generally  do  is  to  lend  it ;  for  borrowers  are  nearly 
always  ill-spenders,  and  it  is  with  lent  money  that  all  evil  ig 
mainly  done,  and  all  unjust  war  protracted. 

For  observe  what  the  real  fact  is,  respecting  loans  to  for- 
eign military  governments,  and  how  strange  it  is.  If  your 
little  boy  came  to  you  to  ask  for  money  to  spend  in  squibs 


WORK.  23 

and  crackers,  you  would  think  twice  before  you  gave  it  him 
and  you  would  have  some  idea  that  it  was  wasted,  when  you 
saw  it  fly  off  in  fireworks,  even  though  he  did  no  mischief 
with  it.  But  the  Russian  children,  and  Austrian  children, 
come  to  you,  borrowing  money,  not  to  spend  in  innocent 
squibs,  but  in  cartridges  and  bayonets  to  attack  you  in  India 
with,  and  to  keep  down  all  noble  life  in  Italy  with,  and  to 
murder  Polish  women  and  children  with ;  and  that  you  will 
give  at  once,  because  they  pay  you  interest  for  it.  Now,  in 
order  to  pay  you  that  interest,  they  must  tax  every  working 
peasant  in  their  dominions ;  and  on  that  work  you  five.  You 
therefore  at  once  rob  the  Austrian  peasant,  assassinate  or 
banish  the  Polish  peasant,  and  you  live  on  the  produce  of  the 
theft,  and  the  bribe  for  the  assassination  !  That  is  the  broad 
fact — that  is  the  practical  meaning  of  your  foreign  loans,  and 
of  most  large  interest  of  money  ;  and  then  you  quarrel  with 
Bishop  Colenso,  forsooth,  as  if  he  denied  the  Bible,  and  you 
believed  it !  though,  wretches  as  you  are,  every  deliberate 
act  of  your  lives  is  a  new  defiance  of  its  primary  orders ;  and 
as  if,  for  most  of  the  rich  men  of  England  at  this  moment,  it 
were  not  indeed  to  be  desired,  as  the  best  thing  at  least  foi 
ihem,  that  the  Bible  should  not  be  true,  since  against  them 
these  words  are  written  in  it :  '  The  rust  of  your  gold  and 
silver  shall  be  a  witness  against  you,  and  shall  eat  your  flesh, 
as  it  were  fire.' 


24  THE   CROWN    OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

ILL  I  pass  now  to  our  third  condition  of  separation,  bo 
tween  the  men  who  work  with  the  hand,  and  those  who  wort 
with  the  head. 

And  here  we  have  at  last  an  inevitable  distinction.  There 
must  be  work  done  by  the  arms,  or  none  of  us  could  live. 
There  must  be  work  done  by  the  brains,  or  the  life  we  get 
would  not  be  worth  having.  And  the  same  men  cannot  do 
both.  There  is  rough  work  to  be  done,  and  rough  men  must 
do  it ;  there  is  gentle  work  to  be  done,  and  gentlemen 
must  do  it ;  and  it  is  physically  impossible  that  one  class  should 
do,  or  divide,  the  work  of  the  other.  And  it  is  of  no  use  to 
try  to  couceal  this  sorrowful  fact  by  fine  words,  and  to  talk 
to  the  workman  about  the  honourableness  of  manual  labour, 
and  the  dignity  of  humanity.  That  is  a  grand  old  proverb 
of  Sancho  Panza's,  '  Fine  words  butter  no  parsnips  ; '  aud  I 
can  tell  you  that,  all  over  England  just  now,  you  workmen 
are  buying  a  great  deal  too  much  butter  at  that  dairy.  Rough 
work,  honourable  or  not,  takes  the  life  out  of  us  ;  and  the  man 
who  has  been  heaving  clay  out  of  a  ditch  all  day,  or  driving 
an  express  train  against  the  north  wind  all  night,  or  holding 
a  collier's  helm  in  a  gale  on  a  lee-shore,  or  whirling  white  hot 
iron  at  a  furnace  mouth,  that  man  is  not  the  same  at  the  end 
of  his  day,  or  night,  as  one  who  has  been  sitting  in  a  quiet 
room,  with  everything  comfortable  about  him,  reading  books, 
or  classing  butterflies,  or  painting  pictures.     If  it  is  any  com- 


WOKK.  25 

fort  to  you  to  be  told  that  the  rough  work  is  the  more  honour- 
able  of  the  two,  I  should  be  sorry  to  take  that  much  of  con- 
solation from  you ;  and  in  some  sense  I  need  not.  The  rough 
work  is  at  all  events  real,  honest,  and,  generally,  though  not 
always,  useful ;  while  the  fine  work  is,  a  great  deal  of  it, 
foolish  and  false  as  well  as  fine,  and  therefore  dishonourable  : 
but  when  both  kinds  are  equally  well  and  worthily  done,  the 
head's  is  the  noble  work,  and  the  hand's  the  ignoble  ;  and  of 
all  hand  work  whatsoever,  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of 
life,  those  old  words,  '  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  thou  shalt  eat 
bread,'  indicate  that  the  inherent  nature  of  it  is  one  of  cala- 
mity ;  and  that  the  ground,  cursed  for  our  sake,  casts  also 
some  shadow  of  degradation  into  our  contest  with  its  thorn 
and  its  thistle  ;  so  that  all  nations  have  held  their  days  hon 
ourable,  or  'holy,'  and  constituted  them  '  holydays '  or 
*  holidays,'  by  making  them  days  of  rest ;  and  the  promise, 
which,  among  all  our  distant  hopes,  seems  to  cast  the  chief 
brightness  over  death,  is  that  blessing  of  the  dead  who  die  in 
the  Lord,  that  'they  rest  from  their  labours,  and  their 
works  do  follow  them.' 

And  thus  the  perpetual  question  and  contest  must  arise, 
who  is  to  do  this  rough  work?  and  how  is  the  worker  of  it 
to  be  comforted,  redeemed,  and  rewarded?  and  what  kind 
of  play  should  he  have,  and  what  rest,  in  this  world,  some- 
times, as  well  as  in  the  next  ?      Well,  my   good    working 


26  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

friends,  these  questions  will  take  a  little  time  to  answer  yet. 
They  must  be  answered :  all  good  men  are  occupied  with 
them,  and  all  honest  thinkers.  There's  grand  head  work 
doing  about  them ;  but  much  must  be  discovered,  and  much 
attempted  in  vain,  before  anything  decisive  can  be  told 
you.  Only  note  these  few  particulars,  which  are  already 
sure. 

As  to  the  distribution  of  the  hard  work.  None  of  us,  or 
very  few  of  us,  do  either  hard  or  soft  work  because  we  think 
we  ought ;  but  because  we  have  chanced  to  fall  into  the  way 
of  it,  and  cannot  help  ourselves.  Now,  nobody  does  any- 
thing well  that  they  cannot  help  doing:  work  is  only  done 
well  when  it  is  done  with  a  will ;  and  no  man  has  a  tho- 
roughly sound  will  unless  he  knows  he  is  doing  what  he 
should,  and  is  in  his  place.  And,  depend  upon  it,  all  work 
must  be  done  at  last,  not  in  a  disorderly,  scrambling,  doggish 
way,  but  in  an  ordered,  soldierly,  human  way — a  lawful 
way.  Men  are  enlisted  for  the  labour  that  kills — the  labour 
of  war :  they  are  counted,  trained,  fed,  dressed,  and  praised  for 
that.  Let  them  be  enlisted  also  for  the  labour  that  feeds :  let 
them  be  counted,  trained,  fed,  dressed,  praised  for  that. 
Teach  the  plough  exercise  as  carefully  as  you  do  the  sword 
exercise,  and  let  the  officers  of  troops  of  life  be  held  as  much 
gentlemen  as  the  officers  of  troops  of  death  ;  and  all  is  clone  : 
but  neither  this,  nor  any  other  right  thing,  can  be  accom 


WORK.  27 

plished — you  can't  even  see  your  way  to  it — unless,  first  of 
all,  both  servant  and  master  are  resolved  that,  come  what 
will  of  it,  they  will  do  each  other  justice.  People  are  per- 
petually squabbling  about  what  will  be  best  to  do,  or  easiest 
to  do,  or  adviseablest  to  do,  or  profitablest  to  do  ;  but  they 
never,  so  far  as  I  hear  them  talk,  ever  ask  what  it  is  just  to 
do.  And  it  is  the  law  of  heaven  that  you  shall  not  be  able  to 
judge  what  is  wise  or  easy,  unless  you  are  first  resolved  to 
judge  what  is  just,  and  to  do  it.  That  is  the  one  thing  con- 
stantly reiterated  by  our  Master — the  order  of  all  others  that 
is  given  ofteuest — '  Do  justice  and  judgment.'  That's  your 
Bible  order ;  that's  the  '  Service  of  God,'  not  praying  nor 
psalm-singing.  You  are  told,  indeed,  to  sing  psalms  when 
you  are  merry,  and  to  pray  when  you  need  anything ;  and, 
by  the  perversion  of  the  Evil  Spirit,  we  get  to  think  that 
praying  and  psalm-singing  are  'service.'  If  a  child  finds 
itself  in  want  of  anything,  it  runs  in  and  asks  its  father  for  it 
— does  it  call  that,  doing  its  father  a  service  ?  If  it  begs  for 
a  toy  or  a  piece  of  cake — does  it  call  that  serving  its  father  ? 
That,  with  God,  is  prayer,  and  He  likes  to  hear  it :  He  likes 
you  to  ask  Him  for  cake  when  you  want  it ;  but  He  does  n't 
call  that 'serving  Him.'  Begging  is  not  serving:  God  likes 
mere  beggars  as  little  as  you  do — He  likes  honest  servants, 
not  beggars.  So  when  a  child  loves  its  father  very  much, 
and  is  very  happy,  it  may  sing  little  songs  about  him;  but  it 


28  THE  CKOWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

doesn't  call  that  serving  its  father;  neither  is  singing  songi 
about  God,  serving  God.  It  is  enjoying  ourselves,  if  it 's  any- 
thing ;  most  probably  it  is  nothing  ;  but  if  it's  anything,  it  is 
serving  ourselves,  not  God.  And  yet  we  are  impudent 
enough  to  call  our  beggings  and  chauntings  'Divine  Ser- 
vice : '  we  say  '  Divine  service  will  be  "  performed  "  '  (that's 
our  word — the  form  of  it  gone  through)  '  at  eleven  o'clock.' 
Alas ! — unless  we  perform  Divine  service  in  every  willing  act 
of  our  life,  we  never  perform  it  at  all.  The  one  Divine 
work — the  one  ordered  sacrifice — is  to  do  justice;  and  it  is 
the  last  we  are  ever  inclined  to  do.  Anything  rather  than 
that !  As  much,  charity  as  you  choose,  but  no  justice. 
*  Nay,' you  will  say,  '  charity  is  greater  than  justice.'  Yes, 
it  is  greater;  it  is  the  summit  of  justice — it  is  the  temple  of 
which  justice  is  the  foundation.  But  you  can't  have  the  top 
without  the  bottom ;  you  cannot  build  upon  charity.  You 
must  build  upon  justice,  for  this  main  reason,  that  you  have 
not,  at  first,  charity  to  build  with.  It  is  the  last  reward  of 
good  work.  Do  justice  to  your  brother  (you  can  do  that, 
whether  you  love  him  or  not),  and  you  will  come  to  love 
him.  But  do  injustice  to  him,  because  you  don't  love  him; 
and  you  will  come  to  hate  him.  It  is  all  very  fine  to  think 
you  can  build  upon  charity  to  begin  with ;  but  you  will  find 
all  you  have  got  to  begin  with,  begins  at  home,  and  is  essenti- 
ally love  of  yourself.   You  well-to-do  people,  for  instance,  whe 


•WORK.  29 

are  here  to-night,  will  go  to  '  Divine  service '  next  Sunday, 
all  nice  and  tidy,  and  your  little  children  will  have  their  tight 
little  Sunday  hoots  on,  and  lovely  little  Sunday  feathers  in 
their  hats;  and  you'll  think,  complacently  and  piously,  how 
lovely  they  look  !  So  they  do :  and  you  love  them  heartily, 
and  you  like  sticking  feathers  in  their  hats.  That  \s  all  right : 
that  is  charity  ;  but  it  is  charity  beginning  at  home.  Then 
you  wilJ  come  to  the  poor  little  crossing-sweeper,  got  up 
also, — it,  in  its  Sunday  dress, — the  dirtiest  rags  it  has, — that 
it  may  beg  the  better:  we  shall  give  it  a  penny,  and  think 
how  good  we  are.  That 's  charity  going  abroad.  But  what 
does  Justice  say,  walking  and  watching  near  us?  Christian 
Justice  has  been  strangely  mute,  and  seemingly  blind  ;  and, 
if  not  blind,  decrepit,  this  many  a  day:  she  keeps  her  ac- 
counts still,  however — quite  steadily — doing  them  at  nights, 
carefully,  with  her  bandage  oif,  and  through  acutest  specta- 
cles (the  only  modern  scientific  invention  she  cares  about). 
You  must  put  your  ear  down  ever  so  close  to  her  lips  to  hear 
her  speak  ;  and  then  you  will  start  at  what  she  first  whispers, 
for  it  will  certainly  be,  'Why  shouldn't  that  little  crossing 
sweeper  have  a  feather  on  its  head,  as  Avell  as  your  own 
child  ?'  Then  you  may  ask  Justice,  in  an  amazed  manner, 
'  How  she  can  possibly  be  so  foolish  as  to  think  children 
could  sweep  crossings  with  feathers  on  their  heads  ?'  Then 
you  stoop  again,  and  Justice  says — still  in  her  dull,  stupid 


30  TILE   CROWN    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

way — '  Then,  why  don't  you,  every  other  Sunday,  leave  your 
child  to  sweep  the  crossing,  and  take  the  little  sweeper  to 
church  in  a  hat  and  feather?'  Mercy  on  us  (you  think), 
what  will  she  say  next  ?  And  you  answer,  of  course,  that 
4  you  don't,  because  every  body  ought  to  remain  content  in 
the  position  in  which  Providence  has  placed  them.'  Ah,  my 
friends,  that 's  the  gist  of  the  whole  question.  Did  Provi- 
dence put  them  in  that  position,  or  did  you?  You  knock  a 
man  into  a  ditch,  and  then  you  tell  him  to  remain  content  in 
the  '  position  in  which  Providence  has  placed  him.'  That 's 
modern  Christianity.  You  say — '  We  did  not  knock  him 
into  the  ditch.'  How  do  you  know  what  you  have  done,  or 
are  doing?  That's  just  what  we  have  all  got  to  know,  and 
what  we  shall  never  know,  until  the  question  with  us  every 
morning,  is,  not  how  to  do  the  gainful  thing,  but  how  to  do 
the  just  thing ;  nor  until  we  are  at  least  so  far  on  the  way  to 
being  Christian,  as  to  have  understood  that  maxim  of  the 
poor  half-way  Mahometan,  'One  hour  in  the  execution  of 
justice  is  worth  seventy  years  of  prayer.' 

Supposing,  then,  we  have  it  determined  with  appropriate 
justice,  who  is  to  do  the  hand  work,  the  next  questions  must 
be  how  the  hand-workers  are  to  be  paid,  and  how  they  are 
to  be  refresned,  and  what  play  they  are  to  have.  Now,  the 
possible  quantity  of  play  depends  on  the  possible  quantity  of 
pay;  and  the  quantity  of  pay  is  not  a  matter  for  conside« 


WORK.  31 

ration  to  hand-workers  only,  but  to  all  workers.  Generally, 
good,  useful  work,  whether  of  the  hand  or  head,  is  either 
ill-paid,  or  not  paid  at  all.  I  don't  say  it  should  be  so,  but 
it  always  is  so.  People,  as  a  rule,  only  pay  for  being  amused 
or  being  cheated,  not  for  being  served.  Five  thousand  a 
year  to  your  talker,  and  a  shilling  a  day  to  your  fighter, 
digger,  and  thinker,  is  the  rule.  None  of  the  best  head 
work  in  art,  literature,  or  science,  is  ever  paid  for.  How 
much  do  you  think  Homer  got  for  his  Iliad  ?  or  Dante  for  hi? 
Paradise?  only  bitter  bread  and  salt,  and  going  up  and  down 
other  people's  stairs.  In  science,  the  man  who  discovered 
the  telescope,  and  first  saw  heaven,  was  paid  with  a  dun- 
geon ;  the  man  who  invented  the  microscope,  and  first  saw 
earth,  died  of  starvation,  driven  from  his  home:  it  is  indeed 
very  clear  that  God  means  all  thoroughly  good  work  and 
talk  to  be  done  for  nothing.  Baruch,  the  scribe,  did  not 
get  a  penny  a  line  for  writing  Jeremiah's  second  roll  for  him, 
I  fancy ;  and  St.  Stephen  did  not  get  bishop's  pay  for  that 
long  sermon  of  his  to  the  Pharisees ;  nothing  but  stones. 
For  indeed  that  is  the  world-father's  proper  payment.  So 
surely  as  any  of  the  world's  children  work  for  the  world's 
good,  honestly,  with  head  and  heart ;  and  come  to  it,  saying, 
4  Give  us  a  little  bread,  just  to  keep  tl  ,e  life  in  us,'  the  world- 
father  answers  them,  'No,  my  children,  not  bread;  a  stone, 
if  you  like>  or  as  many  as  you  need,  to  keep  you  quiet."    But 


32  THE   CROWN    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

the  hand-workers  are  not  so  ill  off  as  all  this  comes  to.  The 
worst  that  can  happen  to  you  is  to  break  stones;  not  be 
broken  by  them.  And  for  you  there  will  come  a  time  for 
better  payment ;  some  day,  assuredly,  more  pence  will  be 
paid  to  Peter  the  Fisherman,  and  fewer  to  Peter  the  Pope; 
we  shall  pay  people  not  quite  so  much  for  talking  in  Parlia- 
ment and  doing  nothing,  as  for  holding  their  tongues  out 
of  it  and  doing  something;  we  shall  pay  our  ploughman  a 
little  more  and  our  lawyer  a  little  less,  and  so  on :  but,  at 
least,  we  may  even  now  take  care  that  whatever  work  is 
done  shall  be  fully  paid  for ;  and  the  man  who  does  it  paid 
for  it,  not  somebody  else ;  and  that  it  shall  be  done  in  an 
orderly,  soldierly,  well-guided,  wholesome  way,  under  good 
captains  and  lieutenants  of  labour;  and  that  it  shall  have  its 
appointed  times  of  rest,  and  enough  of  them;  and  that  in 
those  times  the  play  shall  be  wholesome  play,  not  in  theatri- 
cal gardens,  with  tin  flowers  and  gas  sunshine,  and  girls 
dancing  because  of  their  misery;  but  in  true  gardens,  with 
real  flowers,  and  real  sunshine,  nnd  children  dancing  because 
of  their  gladness ;  so  that  truly  the  streets  shall  be  full  (the 
'  streets,'  mind  you,  not  the  gutters)  of  children,  playing  in 
the  midst  thereof.  We  may  take  care  that  working-men 
shall  have  at  least  as  good  books  to  read  as  anybody  else, 
when  they've  time  to  read  them ;  and  as  comfortable  firesides 
to  sit  at  as  anybody  else,  when  they've  time  to  sit  at  them. 


WORK.  33 

This,  I  think,  can  be  managed  for  you,  my  working  friends, 
in  the  good  time. 

IV.  I  must  go  on,  however,  to  our  last  head,  concerning 
ourselves  all,  as  workers.  What  is  wise  work,  and  what  is 
foolish  work  ?  What  the  difference  between  sense  and  non 
sense,  in  daily  occupation  ? 

Well,  wise  work  is,  briefly,  work  with  God.  Foolish  work 
is  work  against  God.  And  work  done  with  God,  which  He 
will  help,  may  be  briefly  described  as  'Putting  in  Order' — 
that  is,  enforcing  God's  law  of  order,  spiritual  and  material, 
over  men  and  things.  The  first  thing  you  have  to  do,  essen- 
tially; the  real  'good  work'  is,  with  respect  to  men,  to 
enforce  justice,  and  with  respect  to  things,  to  enforce  tidi- 
ness, and  fruitfulness.  And  against  these  two  great  human 
deeds,  justice  and  order,  there  are  perpetually  two  great 
demons  contending, — the  devil  of  iniquity,  or  inequity,  and 
the  devil  of  disorder,  or  of  death ;  for  death  is  only  consum- 
mation of  disorder.  You  have  to  fight  these  two  fiends  daily. 
So  far  as  you  don't  fight  against  the  fiend  of  iniquity,  you 
work  for  him.  You  '  work  iniquity,'  and  the  judgment  upon 
you,  for  all  your  '  Lord,  Lord's,'  will  be  '  Depart  from  me, 
ye  that  work  iniquity.'  And  so  far  as  you  do  not  resist  the 
fiend  of  disorder,  yon  work  disorder,  and  you  yourself  dc 
the  work  of  Death,  which  is  sin,  and  has  for  its  wages,  Deatb 

himself. 

2* 


34  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIE. 

and  to  chastise,  the  worst  elements  of  the  impious  "  ft**  " 
and  tumult  in  men's  thoughts,  which  have  followed  on 
their  avarice  in  the  present  day,  making  them  alike  forsake 
the  laws  of  their  ancient  gods,  and  misapprehend  or  reject 
the  true  words  of  their  existing  teachers. 

30.  All  this  we  have  from  the  legends  of  the  historic 
Mollis  only ;  but,  besides  these,  there  is  the  beautiful  story 
of  Semele,  the  Mother  of  Bacchus.  She  is  the  cloud  with 
the  strength  of  the  vine  in  its  bosom,  consumed  by  the 
light  which  matures  the  fruit ;  the  melting  away  of  the 
cloud  into  the  clear  air  at  the  fringe  of  its  edges  being  ex- 
quisitely Tendered  by  Pindar's  epithet  for  her,  Semele, 
"with  the  stretched-out  hair"  (jxivlfo </>*).  Then  there  is 
the  entire  tradition  of  the  Danaides,  and  of  the  tower  of 
Danae  and  golden  shower ;  the  birth  of  Perseus  connect- 
ing this  legend  with  that  of  the  Gorgons  and  Graire,  who 
are  the  true  clouds  of  thunderous  and  ruinous  tempest. 
I  must,  in  passing,  mark  for  you  that  the  form  of  the  sword 
or  sickle  of  Perseus,  with  which  he  kills  Medusa,  is  anoth- 
er image  of  the  whirling  harpy  vortex,  and  belongs  espe- 
cially to  the  sword  of  destruction  or  annihilation  ;  whence 
it  is  given  to  the  two  angels  who  gather  for  destruction 
the  evil  harvest  and  .evil  vintage  of  the  earth  (Rev.  xiv.  15). 
I  will  collect  afterwards  and  complete  what  I  have  already 
written  respecting  the  Pegasean  and  Gorgonian  legends, 
noting  here  only  what  is  necessary  to  explain  the  central 
myth  of  Athena  herself,  who  represents  the  ambient  air, 
which  included  all  cloud,  and  rain,  and  dew,  and  dark 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  35 

ness,  and  peace,  and  wrath  of  heaven.  Let  me  now  try  to 
give  you,  however  briefly,  some  distinct  idea  of  the  several 
agencies  of  this  great  goddess. 

31.  I.  She   is  the  air  giving  life  and    health    to    all 

animals. 
II.  She  is  the  air  giving  vegetative   power   to  the 
earth. 

III.  She  is  the  air  giving  motion  to  the  sea,  and  ren- 

dering navigation  possible. 

IV.  She  is  the  air  nourishing  artificial  light,  torch  or 

lamplight ;  as  opposed  to  that  of  the  sun,  on 
one  hand,  and  of  consuming  *  fire  on  the  other. 
V.  She  is  the  air  conveying  vibration  of  sound. 
I  will  give  you  instances  of  her  agency  in   all  these 
functions. 

32.  First,  and  chiefly,  she  is  air  as  the  spirit  of  life, 
giving  vitality  to  the  blood.  Her  psychic  relation  to  the 
vital  force  in  matter  lies  deeper,  and  we  will  examine  it 
afterwards  ;  but  a  great  number  of  the  most  interesting 
passages  in  Homer  regard  her  as  flying  over  the  earth  in 
local  and  transitory  strength,  simply  and  merely  the  god- 
dess of  fresh  air. 

It  is  curious  that  the  British  city  which  has  somewhat 
Baucily  styled  itself  the  Modern  Athens,  is  indeed  more 
under  her  especial  tutelage  and  favour  in  this  respect  than 
perhaps  any  other  town  in  the  island.  Athena  is  first 
6imply  what   in  the  Modern    Athens   you  so  practically 

*  Nc  t  a  scientific,  but  a  very  practical  and  expressive  distinction. 


36  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

are  golden  bowls  with  human  life  in  them,  and  instead  of 
the  cat  to  play  with — the  devil  to  play  with ;  and  you  your- 
self the  player ;  and  instead  of  leaving  that  golden  bowl  to 
be  broken  by  God  at  the  fountain,  you  break  it  in  the  dust 
yourself,  and  pour  the  human  blood  out  on  the  ground  for 
the  fiend  to  lick  up — that  is  no  waste  1  What !  you  perhaps 
think,  '  to  waste  the  labour  of  men  is  not  to  kill  them.'  Is  it 
not  ?  I  should  like  to  know  how  you  could  kill  them  more 
utterly — kill  them  with  second  deaths,  seventh  deaths,  hun- 
dredfold deaths  ?  It  is  the  slightest  way  of  killing  to  stop 
a  man's  breath.  Nay,  the  hunger,  and  the  cold,  and  the 
little  whistling  bullets — our  love-messengers  between  nation 
and  nation — have  brought  pleasant  messages  from  us  to 
many  a  man  before  now  ;  orders  of  sweet  release,  and  leave 
at  last  to  go  where  he  wall  be  most  welcome  and  most 
happy*  At  the  worst  you  do  but  shorten  his  life,  you  do 
not  corrupt  his  life.  But  if  you  put  him  to  base  labour,  if 
you  bind  his  thoughts,  if  you  blind  his  eyes,  if  you  blunt  his 
hopes,  if  you  steal  his  joys,  if  you  stunt  his  body,  and  blast 
his  soul,  and  at  last  leave  him  not  so  much  as  to  reap  the 
poor  fruit  of  his  degradation,  but  gather  that  for  yourself, 
and  dismiss  him  to  the  grave,  when  you  have  done  with  him, 
having,  so  far  as  in  you  lay,  made  the  walls  of  that  grave 
everlasting  (though,  indeed,  I  fancy  the  goodly  bricks  of 
some  of  our  family  vaults  will  hold  closer  in  the  resurrection 


W0BK.  37 

day  than  the  sod  over  the  labourer's  head),  this  you  tnink  is 
no  waste,  and  no  sin ! 

III.  Then,  lastly,  wise  work  is  cheerful,  as  a  child's  work 
is.  And  now  I  want  you  to  take  one  thought  home  with 
you,  and  let  it  stay  with  you. 

Everybody  in  this  room  has  been  taught  to  pray  daily, 
'Thy  kingdom  come.'  Now,  if  we  hear  a  man  swear  in  the 
streets,  we  think  it  very  wrong,  and  say  he  'takes  God's 
name  in  vain.'  But  there  's  a  twenty  times  worse  way  of 
taking  His  name  in  vain,  than  that.  It  is  to  ask  God  for 
what  we  dorCt  want.  He  does  n't  like  that  sort  of  prayer.  If 
you  don't  want  a  thing,  don't  ask  for  it :  such  asking  is  the 
worst  mockery  of  your  King  you  can  mock  Him  with ;  the 
soldiers  striking  Him  on  the  head  with  the  reed  was  nothing 
to  that.  If  you  do  not  wish  for  His  kingdom,  don't  pray  for 
it.  But  if  you  do,  you  must  do  more  than  pray  for  it ;  you 
must  work  for  it.  And,  to  work  for  it,  you  must  know  what 
it  is :  we  have  all  prayed  for  it  many  a  day  without  thinking. 
Observe,  it  is  a  kingdom  that  is  to  come  to  us ;  we  are  not 
to  go  to  it.  Also,  it  is  not  to  be  a  kingdom  of  the  dead,  but 
of  the  living.  Also,  it  is  not  to  come  all  at  once,  but  quietly  ; 
nobody  knows  how.  'The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with 
observation.'  Also,  it  is  not  to  come  outside  of  us,  but  in 
the  hearts  of  us:  'the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you.'  And, 
being  within  us,  it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  seen,  but  to  be  felt ; 


38  THE   CROWN   OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

and  though  it  brings  all  substance  of  good  with  it,  it  does 
not  consist  in  that:  'the  kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and 
drink,  but  righteousness,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost:' 
joy,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  holy,  healthful,  and  helpful  Spirit. 
Now,  if  we  want  to  work  for  this  kingdom,  and  to  bring 
it,  and  enter  into  it,  there 's  just  one  condition  to  be  first 
accepted.  You  must  enter  it  as  children,  or  not  at  all ; 
'  Whosoever  will  not  receive  it  as  a  little  child  shall  not  enter 
therein.'  And  again,  'Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto 
me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.' 

Of  such,  observe.  Not  of  children  themselves,  but  of  such 
as  children.  I  believe  most  mothers  who  read  that  text 
think  that  all  heaven  is  to  be  full  of  babies.  But  that 's  not 
so.  There  will  be  children  there,  but  the  hoary  head  is  the 
crown.  '  Length  of  days,  and  long  life  and  peace,'  that  is 
the  blessing,  not  to  die  in  babyhood.  Children  die  but  for 
their  parents'  sins  ;  God  means  them  to  live,  but  He  can't  let 
them  always  ;  then  they  have  their  earlier  place  in  heaven  : 
and  the  little  child  of  David,  vainly  prayed  for; — the  little 
child  of  Jeroboam,  killed  by  its  mother's  step  on  its  own 
threshold, — they  will  be  there.  But  weary  old  David,  and 
weary  old  Barzillai,  having  learned  children's  lessons  at  last, 
will  be  there  too .  and  the  one  question  for  us  all,  young  or 
old,  is,  have  we  learned  our  child's  lesson  ?  it  is  the  character  of 


WORK.  39 

emldren  we  want,  and  must  gain  at  our  peril ;  let  us  see, 
briefly,  in  what  it  consists. 

The  first  character  of  right  childhood  is  that  it  is  Modest 
A  well-bred  child  does  not  think  it  can  teach  its  parents,  01 
that  it  knows  everything.  It  may  think  its  father  and 
mother  know  everything, — perhaps  that  all  grown-up  people 
know  everything ;  very  certainly  it  is  sure  that  it  does  not. 
And  it  is  always  asking  questions,  and  wanting  to  know 
more.  Well,  that  is  the  first  character  of  a  good  and  wise 
man  at  his  work.  To  know  that  he  knows  very  little ; — to 
perceive  that  there  are  many  above  him  wiser  than  he ;  and 
to  be  always  asking  questions,  wanting  to  learn,  not  to  teach. 
No  one  ever  teaches  well  wTho  wants  to  teach,  or  governs 
well  who  wants  to  govern  ;  it  is  an  old  saying  (Plato's, 
but  I  know  not  if  his,  first),  and  as  wise  as  old. 

Then,  the  second  character  of  right  childhood  is  to  be 
Faithful.  Perceiving  that  its  father  knows  best  what  is  good 
for  it,  and  having  found  always,  when  it  has  tried  its  own 
way  against  his,  that  he  was  right  and  it  was  wrong,  a  noble 
child  trusts  him  at  last  wholly,  gives  him  its  hand,  and  will 
walk  blindfold  with  him,  if  he  bids  it.  And  that  is  the  true 
character  of  all  good  men  also,  as.  obedient  workers,  or  sol- 
diers under  captains.  They  must  trust  their  captains  ; — they 
are  bound  for  their  lives  to  choose  none  but  those  whom  they 
can  trust.     Then,  they  are  not  always  to  be  thinking  thai 


40  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD   OLIVE. 

what  seems  strange  to  them,  or  wrong  in  what  they  are 
desired  to  do,  is  strange  or  wrong.  They  know  their  cap- 
tain :  where  he  leads  they  must  follow,  what  he  bids,  the) 
must  do ;  and  without  this  trust  and  faith,  without  this 
captainship  and  soldiership,  no  great  deed,  no  great  salvation, 
is  possible  to  man.  Among  all  the  nations  it  is  only  when 
this  faith  is  attained  by  them  that  they  become  great:  the 
Jew,  the  Greek,  and  the  Mahometan,  agree  at  least  in  testify- 
ing to  this.  It  was  a  deed  of  this  absolute  trust  which  made 
Abraham  the  father  of  the  faithful ;  it  was  the  declaration  of 
the  power  of  God  as  captain  over  all  men,  and  the  acceptance 
of  a  leader  appointed  by  Him  as  commander  of  the  faithful, 
which  laid  the  foundation  of  whatever  national  power  yet 
exists  in  the  East ;  and  the  deed  of  the  Greeks,  which  has 
become  the  type  of  unselfish  and  noble  soldiership  to  all 
lands,  and  to  all  times,  was  commemorated,  on  the  tomb  of 
those  who  gave  their  lives  to  do  it,  in  the  most  pathetic,  so 
far  as  I  know,  or  can  feel,  of  all  human  utterances:  'Oh, 
stranger,  go  and  tell  our  people  that  we  are  lying  here, 
having  obeyed  their  words.' 

Then  the  third  character  of  right  childhood  is  to  be  Loving 
and  Generous.  Give  a  little  love  to  a  child,  and  you  get  a 
great  deal  back.  It  loves  everything  near  it,  when  it  is  a 
right  kind  of  child — would  hurt  nothing,  would  give  the  best 
it  has  away,  always,  if  you  need  it — does  not  lay  plans  for 


WORK.  41 

getting  everything  in  the  house  for  itself,  and  delights  in 
helping  people ;  you  cannot  please  it  so  much  as  hy  giving  it 
a  chance  of  heing  useful,  in  ever  so  little  a  way. 

And  because  of  all  these  characters,  lastly,  it  is  Cheerful. 
Putting  its  trust  in  its  father,  it  is  careful  for  nothing — being 
full  of  love  to  every  creature,  it  is  happy  always,  whether  in 
its  play  or  in  its  duty.  Well,  that's  the  great  worker's  cha- 
racter also.  Taking  no  thought  for  the  morrow;  taking 
thought  only  for  the  duty  of  the  day  ;  trusting  somebody  else 
to  take  care  of  to-morrow  ;  knowing  indeed  what  labour  is,  but 
not  what  sorrow  is;  and  always  ready  for  play — beautiful 
play, — for  lovely  human  play  is  like  the  play  of  the  Sun, 
There 's  a  worker  for  you.  He,  steady  to  his  time,  is  set  as  a 
strong  man  to  run  his  course,  but  also,  he  rejoiceth  as  a  strong 
man  to  run  his  course.  See  how  he  plays  in  the  morning, 
with  the  mists  below,  and  the  clouds  above,  with  a  ray  here 
and  a  flash  there,  and  a  shower  of  jewels  everywhere  ; — that's 
the  Sun's  play ;  and  great  human  play  is  like  his — all  various 
— all  full  of  light  and  life,  and  tender,  as  the  dew  of  the 
morning. 

So  then,  you  have  the  child's  character  in  these  four  things — 
Humility,  Faith,  Charity,  and  Cheerfulness.  That's  what  you 
have  got  to  be  converted  to.  '  Except  ye  be  converted  and  be- 
come as  little  children' — You  hear  much  of  conversion  now- 
a-days ;  but  people  always  seem  to  think  they  have  got  to  be 


42  THE   CROWN    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

made  wretched  by  conversion, — to  be  converted  to  long 
faces.  No,  friends,  yon  have  got  to  be  converted  to  short 
ones;  you  have  to  repent  into  childhood,  to  repent  into 
delight,  and  delightsorneness.  You  can't  go  into  a  con- 
venticle but  you'll  hear  plenty  of  talk  of  backsliding. 
Backsliding,  indeed!  I  can  tell  you,  on  the  ways  most 
of  us  go,  the  faster  we  slide  back  the  better.  Slide  back 
into  the  cradle,  if  going  on  is  into  the  grave — back,  I 
tell  you ;  back— out  of  your  long  faces,  and  into  your 
long  clothes.  It  is  among  children  only,  and  as  children 
only,  that  you  will  find  medicine  for  your  healing  and 
true  wisdom  for  your  teaching.  There  is  poison  in  the 
counsels  of  the  men  of  this  world ;  the  words  they  speak 
are  all  bitterness,  'the  poison  of  asps  is  under  their  lips,' 
but,  '  the  sucking  child  shall  play  by  the  hole  of  the 
asp.'  There  is  death  in  the  looks  of  men.  '  Their  eyes 
are  privily  set  against  the  poor ;'  they  are  as  the  uncharm- 
able  serpent,  the  cockatrice,  which  slew  by  seeing.  But 
the  weaned  child  shall  lay  his  hand  on  the  cockatrice 
den.'  There  is  death  in  the  steps  of  men :  '  their .  feet 
are  swift  to  shed  blood;  they  have  compassed  us  in 
our  steps  like  the  lion  that  is  greedy  of  his  prey,  and 
the  young  lion  lurking  in  secret  places,'  but,  in  that  king- 
dom, the  wolf  shall  lie  down  with  the  lamb,  and  the 
fatling  with   the   lion,  and    'a   little  child   shall  lead  them. 


W0BK.  43 

There  Is  death  in  the  thoughts  of  men :  the  world  is 
one  wide  riddle  to  them,  darker  an.l  darker  as  it  draws 
to  a  close ;  but  the  secret  of  it  is  known  to  the  child 
and  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth  is  most  to  be  thanked 
in  that  *  He  has  hidden  these  things  from  the  wise  and 
prudent,  and  has  revealed  them  unto  babes.'  Yes,  and  there 
is  death — infinitude  of  death  in  the  principalities  and 
powers  of  men.  As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west, 
so  far  our  sins  are — not  set  from  us,  but  multiplied  around 
us:  the  Sun  himself,  think  you  he  now  'rejoices'  to  run 
Iiis  course,  when  he  plunges  westward  to  the  horizon,  so 
widely  red.  not  with  clouds,  but  ulood  ?  And  it  will  be 
red  more  widely  yet.  Whatever  drought  of  the  early 
and  latter  rain  may  be,  there  will  be  none  of  that  red 
rain.  You  fortify  yourselves,  you  arm  yourselves  against 
it  in  vain  ;  the  enemy  and  avenger  will  be  upon  you  also, 
unless  you  learn  that  it  is  not  out  of  the  mouths  of  the 
knitted  gun,  or  the  smoothed  rifle,  but  '  out  of  the 
mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings '  that  the  strength  is  ordain* 
id,   which   shall   *  still  the   enemy  and  avenger.' 


TRA  FFIC 


LECTURE  n. 

TRAFFIC. 

{Delivered  in  the  Town  Mall,  Bradford.) 

My  good  Yorkshire  friends,  you  asked  me  down  liete 
among  your  hills  that  I  might  talk  to  you  about  this 
Exchange  you  are  going  to  build:  but  earnestly  and  seriously 
asking  you  to  pardon  me,  I  am  going  to  do  nothing  of 
the  kind.  I  cannot  talk,  or  at  least  can  say  very  little, 
about  this  same  Exchange.  I  must  talk  of  quite  other 
things,  though  not  willingly; — I  could  not  deserve  your 
pardon,  if  when  you  invited  me  to  speak  on  one  subject, 
I  wilfully  spoke  on  another.  But  I  cannot  speak,  to 
purpose,  of  anything  about  which  I  do  not  care ;  and  most 
simply  and  sorrowfully  I  have  to  tell  you,  in  the  outset,  that 
I  do  not  care  about  this  Exchange  of  yours. 

If,  however,  when  you  sent  me  your  invitation,  I  had 
answered,  '  I  won't  come,  I  don't  care  about  the  Exchange 
of  Bradford,'  you  would  have  been  justly  offended  with 
me,  not  knowing  the  reasons  of  so  blunt  a  carelessness. 
So  I  have  come  down,  hoping  that  you  will  patiently  let 
me  tell  you  why,  on  this,  and  many  other  such  occasions, 


48  THE    CROWN    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

I  now  remain  silent,  when  formerly  I  should  have  caught 
al   the  opportunity  of  speaking  to  a  gracious  audience. 

In  a  word,  then,  I  do  not  care  about  this  Exchange,— 
because  you  don't;  and  because  you  know  perfectly  well 
I  cannot  make  you.  Look  at  the  essential  circumstances 
of  the  case,  which  you,  as  business  men,  know  perfectly 
well,  though  perhaps  you  think  I  forget  them.  You  are 
going  to  spend  30,000^.,  which  to  you,  collectively,  is  nothing ; 
the  buying  a  new  coat  is,  as  to  the  cost  of  it,  a  much 
more  important  matter  of  consideration  to  me  than  building 
a  new  Exchange  is  to  you.  But  you  think  you  may  aa 
well  have  the  right  thing  for  your  money.  You  know 
there  are  a  great  many  odd  styles  of  architecture  about ; 
you  don't  want  to  do  anything  ridiculous ;  you  hear  of 
me,  among  others,  as  a  respectable  architectural  man-milliner : 
and  you  send  for  me,  that  I  may  tell  you  the  leading 
fashion ;  and  what  is,  in  our  shops,  for  the  moment,  the 
newest  and  sweetest  thing  in  pinnacles. 

.Now,  pardon  me  for  telling  you  frankly,  you  cannot  have 
good  architecture  merely  by  asking  people's  advice  on  occa- 
sion. All  good  architecture  is  the  expression  of  national  life 
and  character ;  and  it  is  produced  by  a  prevalent  and  eager 
national  taste,  or  desire  for  beauty.  And  I  want  you  to  think 
a  little  of  the  deep  significance  of  this  word  '  taste ;'  for  no 
statement  of  mine  has  been  more  earnestly  or  oftener  contro- 


TRAFFIC.  49 

rerted  than  that  good  taste  is  essentially  a  moral  quality. 
'No,'  say  many  of  my  antagonists,  'taste  is  one  thing,  moral- 
ity is  another.  Tell  us  what  is  pretty;  we  shall  be  glad  to 
know  that ;  but  preach  no  sermons  to  us.' 

Permit  me,  therefore,  to  fortify  this  old  dogma  of  mine 
somewhat.  Taste  is  not  only  a  part  and  an  index  of  moral- 
ity— it  is  the  only  morality.  The  first,  and  last,  and  closest 
trial  question  to  any  living  creature  is,  '  What  do  you  like  ?' 
Tell  me  what  you  like,  and  I'll  tell  you  what  you  are.  Go 
out  into  the  street,  and  ask  the  first  man  or  woman  you  meet, 
what  their  'taste'  is,  and  if  they  answer  candidly,  you  know 
them,  body  and  soul.  'You,  my  friend  in  the  rags,  with  the 
unsteady  gait,  what  do  you  like  ?'  '  A  pipe  and  a  quartern 
of  gin.'  I  know  you.  '  You,  good  woman,  with  the  quick 
step  and  tidy  bonnet,  what  do  you  like  ?'  '  A  swept  hearth 
and  a  c'ean  tea-table,  and  my  husband  opposite  me,  and  a 
baby  at  my  breast.'  Good,  T  know  you  also.  '  You,  little 
girl  wit  a  the  golden  hair  and  the  soft  eyes,  what  do  you  like?* 
'My  canary,  and  a  run  among  the  wood  hyacinths.'  'You, 
little  boy  with  the  dirty  hands  and  the  low  forehead,  what  do 
you  like?'  'A  shy  at  the  sparrows,  and  a  game  at  pitch 
farthing.'  Good ;  we  know  them  all  now.  What  more  need 
we  ask  ? 

' Nay,' perhaps  you  answer:  'we  need  rather  to  ask  what, 
these  peoplp  and  children  do,  than  what  they  like.    If  they  da 

3 


50  THE   CROWS    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

right,  it  is  no  matter  that  they  like  what  is  wrong;  and  if 
they  do  wrong,  it  is  no  matter  that  they  like  what  is  right. 
Doing  is  the  great  thing ;  and  it  does  not  matter  that  the 
man  likes  drinking,  so  that  he  does  not  drink;  nor  that  the 
little  girl  likes  to  be  kind  to  her  canary,  if  she  will  not  learn 
her  lessons;  nor  that  the  little  boy  likes  throwing  stones  at 
the  sparrows,  if  he  goes  to  the  Sunday  school.'  Indeed,  for  a 
short  time,  and  in  a  provisional  sense,  this  is  true.  For  if, 
resolutely,  people  do  what  is  right,  in  time  they  come  to  like 
doing  it.  But  they  only  are  in  a  right  moral  state  when  they 
have  come  to  like  doing  it ;  and  as  long  as  they  don't  like  it, 
they  are  still  in  a  vicious  state.  The  man  is  not  in  health  of 
body  who  is  always  thirsting  for  the  bottle  in  the  cupboard, 
though  he  bravely  bears  his  thirst ;  but  the  man  who  heart- 
ily enjoys  water  in  the  morning  and  wine  in  the  evening,  each 
in  its  proper  quantity  and  time.  And  the  entire  object  of 
true  education  is  to  make  people  not  merely  do  the  right 
things,  but  enjoy  the  right  things — not  merely  industi'ious, 
but  to  love  industry — not  merely  learned,  but  to  love  know- 
ledge— not  merely  pure,  but  to  love  purity — not  merely  just, 
but  to  hunger  and  thirst  after  justice. 

But  you  may  answer  or  think,  '  Is  the  liking  for  outside 
ornaments, — for  pictures,  or  statues,  or  furniture,  or  archi- 
tecture,— a  moral  quality?'  Yes,  most  surely,  if  a  rightly 
set  biking.    Taste  for  any  pictures  or  statues  is  not  a  moraJ 


TRAFFIC.  5 1 

quality,  but  taste  for  good  ones  is.  Only  here  again  we  have 
to  define  the  word  '  good.'  I  don't  raeau  by  '  good,'  clever 
— or  learned — or  difficult  in  the  doing.  Take  a  picture  by 
Teniers,  of  sots  quarrelling  over  their  dice:  it  is  an  entirely 
clever  picture ;  so  clever  that  nothing  in  its  kind  has  ever 
been  done  equal  to  it ;  but  it  is  also  an  entirely  base  and  evil 
picture.  It  is  an  expression  of  delight  in  the  prolonged  con- 
templation of  a  vile  thing,  and  delight  in  that  is  an  'unnian- 
nered,'  or  'immoral'  quality.  It  is  'bad  taste'  in  the 
profoundest  sense — it  is  the  taste  of  the  devils.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  picture  of  Titian's,  or  a  Greek  statue,  or  a 
Greek  coin,  or  a  Turner  landscape,  expresses  delight  in  the 
perpetual  contemplation  of  a  good  and  perfect  thing.  That 
is  an  entirely  moral  quality — it  is  the  taste  of  the  angels. 
And  all  delight  in  art,  and  all  love  of  it,  resolve  themselves 
into  simple  love  of  that  which  deserves  love.  That  deserv- 
ing is  the  quahty  which  we  call  'loveliness' — (we  ought  to 
have  an  opposite  word,  hateliness,  to  be  said  of  the  things 
which  deserve  to  be  hated) ;  and  it  is  not  an  indifferent  nor 
optional  thing  whether  we  love  this  or  that ;  but  it  is  just 
the  vital  function  of  all  our  being.  What  we  like  determines 
what  we  are,  and  is  the  sign  of  what  we  are ;  and  to  teach 
taste  is.  inevitably  to  form  character.  As  I  was  thinking 
over  this,  in  walking  up  Fleet  Street  the  other  day,  my  eye 
caught  the  title  of  a  book  standing  open   in  a  bookseller's 


52  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

window.  It  was — '  On  the  necessity  of  the  diffusion  of  taste 
among  all  classes.'  'Ah,'  I  thought  to  myself,  'my  classify- 
ing friend,  when  you  have  diffused  your  taste,  where  will 
your  classes  be  ?  The  man  who  likes  what  you  like,  belongs 
to  the  same  class  with  you,  I  think.  Inevitably  so.  You 
may  put  him  to  other  work  if  you  choose ;  but,  by  the 
condition  you  have  brought  him  into,  he  will  dislike 
the  other  work  as  much  as  you  would  yourself.  You  get 
hold  of  a  scavenger,  or  a  costermonger,  who  enjoyed  the 
Newgate  Calendar  for  literature,  and  "Pop  goes  the 
Weasel "  for  music.  You  think  you  can  make  him 
like  Dante  and  Beethoven  ?  I  wish  you  joy  of  your 
lessons;  but  if  you  do,  you  have  made  a  gentleman  of 
him: — he  won't  like  to  go  back  to  his  costermonger- 
_™g.' 

And  so  completely  and  unexceptionally  is  this  so,  that,  if 
I  had  time  to-night,  I  could  show  you  that  a  nation  cannot  be 
affected  by  any  vice,  or  weakness,  without  expressing  it,  legi- 
bly, and  for  ever,  either  in  bad  art,  or  by  want  of  art ;  and 
that  there  is  no  national  virtue,  small  or  great,  which  is  not 
manifestly  expressed  in  all  the  art  which  circumstances  en 
Able  the  people  possessing  that  virtue  to  produce.  Take,  for 
instance,  your  great  English  virtue  of  enduring  and  patient 
courage.  You  have  at  present  in  England  only  one  art  of 
any  consequence — that  is,  iron-working.  You  know  thoroughly 


TRAFFIC.  53 

well  bow  to  cast  and  hammer  iron.  Now,  do  you  think  in 
those  masses  of  lava  which  you  build  volcanic  cones  to  melt, 
and  wbich  you  forge  at  tbe  mouths  of  the  Infernos  you  bave 
created  ;  do  jo\\  think,  on  those  iron  plates,  your  courago 
and  endurance  are  not  written  for  ever — not  merely  with  an 
iron  pen,  but  on  iron  parchment?  And  take  also  your  great 
Englisb  vice — European  vice — vice  of  all  tbe  world — vice  of  all 
other  worlds  tbat  roll  or  shine  in  heaven,  bearing  with  them 
yet  the  atmosphere  of  bell— tbe  vice  of  jealousy,  which 
brings  competition  into  your  commerce,  treachery  into  your 
councils,  and  dishonour  into  your  wars — that  vice  wbicb  has 
rendered  for  you,  and  for  your  next  neighbouring  nation,  tbe 
daily  occupations  of  existence  no  longer  j>ossible,  but  witb 
tbe  mail  upon  your  breasts  and  tbe  sword  loose  in  its  sbeatb ; 
so  tbat,  at  last,  you  have  realised  for  all  the  multitudes  of  the 
two  great  peoples  who  lead  the  so-called  civibsation  of  the 
earth, — you  bave  realised  for  them  all,  I  say,  in  person  and 
in  policy,  what  was  once  true  only  of  the  rough  Border 
riders  of  your  Cheviot  hills  — 

'They  carved  at  tbe  meal 
With  gJoves  of  steel, 
And  they  drank  the  red  wine  through  the  helmet  barr'd ; — 
do  you  think  that  this  national  shame  and  dastardliness  of 
heart  are  not  written  as  legibly  on  every  rivet  of  your  iron 
armour  as  the  strength  of  tbe  right  hands  tbat  forged  it  ? 


5i  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

Friends,  I  know  not  whether  this  thing  be  the  more  ludicrous 
or  the  more  melancholy.  It  is  quite  unspeakably  both. 
Suppose,  instead  of  being  now  sent  for  by  you,  I  had  been 
sent  for  by  some  private  gentleman,  living  in  a  suburban 
house,  with  his  garden  separated  only  by  a  fruit-wall  from  his 
next  door  neighbour's ;  and  he  had  called  me  to  consult  with 
him  on  the  furnishing  of  his  drawing-room.  I  begin  looking 
about  me,  and  find  the  walls  rather  bare ;  I  think  such  and 
such  a  paper  might  be  desirable — perhaps  a  little  fresco  here 
and  there  on  the  ceiling — a  damask  curtain  or  so  at  the  win- 
dows. 'Ah,' says  my  employer,  'damask  curtains,  indeed! 
That's  all  very  fine,  but  you  know  I  can't  afford  that  kind  of 
thing  just  now  ! '  '  Yet  the  world  credits  you  with  a  splen- 
did income  ! '  '  Ah,  yes,'  says  my  friend,  '  but  do  you  know, 
at  present,  I  am  obliged  to  spend  it  nearly  all  in  steel-traps  ? ' 
'  Steel-traps  !  for  whom  ? '  '  Why,  for  that  fellow  on  the 
other  side  the  wall,  you  know:  we're  very  good  friends, 
capital  friends;  but  we  are  obliged  to  keep  our  traps  set 
on  both  sides  of  the  wall;  we  could  not  possibly  keep  on 
friendly  terms  without  them,  and  our  spring  guns.  The 
worst  of  it  is,  we  are  both  clever  fellows  enough ;  and  there's 
never  a  day  passes  that  we  don't  find  out  a  new  trap,  or  a 
new  gun-barrel,  or  something ;  we  spend  about  fifteen  mil- 
lions a  year  each  in  our  traps,  take  it  all  together;  and  I 
don't  see  how  we  're  to  do  with  lens.'     A  highly  comic  state 


TRAFFIC.  56 

of  life  for  two  private  gentlemen  !  but  for  two  nations,  it 
seems  to  me,  not  wholly  comic  ?  Bedlam  would  be  comic, 
perhaps,  if  there  were  only  one  madman  in  it;  and  your 
Christmas  pantomime  is  comic,  when  there  is  only  one  clown 
in  it ;  but  when  the  whole  world  turns  clown,  and  paints 
itself  red  with  its  own  heart's  blood  instead  of  vermilion,  it 
is  something  else  than  comic,  I  think. 

Mind,  I  know  a  great  deal  of  this  is  play,  and  willingly 
allow  for  that.  You  don't  know  what  to  do  with  yourselves 
for  a  sensation :  fox-hunting  and  cricketing  will  not  carry  you 
through  the  whole  of  this  unendurably  long  mortal  life :  you 
liked  pop-guns  when  you  were  schoolboys,  and  rifles  and 
Armstrongs  are  only  the  same  things  better  made  :  but  then 
the  worst  of  it  is,  that  what  was  play  to  you  when  boys,  was 
not  play  to  the  sparrows ;  and  what  is  play  to  you  now,  is 
not  play  to  the  small  birds  of  State  neither ;  and  for  the 
black  eagles,  you  are  somewhat  shy  of  taking  shots  at  them, 
if  I  mistake  not. 

I  must  get  back  to  the  matter  in  hand,  however.  Believe 
me,  without  farther  instance,  1  could  show  you,  in  all  time, 
that  every  nation's  vice,  or  virtue,  was  written  in  its  art :  tha 
soldiership  of  early  Greece  ;  the  sensuality  of  late  Italy;  the 
visionary  religion  of  Tuscany;  the  splendid  human  energy 
and  beauty  of  Venice.  I  have  no  time  to  do  this  to-night  (I 
have     done     it    elsewhere     before    now)  ;    but    I    proceed 


56  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

to   apply  the    principle    to    ourselves  in  a  more   searching 
manner. 

I  notice  that  among  all  the  new  buildings  that  over  your 
once  wild  hills,  churches  and  schools  are  mixed  in  due,  that 
is  to  say,  in  large  proportion,  with  your  mills  and  mansions 
and  I  notice  also  that  the  churches  and  schools  are  almost 
always  Gothic,  and  the  mansions  and  mills  are  never  Gothic. 
Will  you  allow  me  to  ask  precisely  the  meaning  of  this? 
For,  remember,  it  is  peculiarly  a  modern  phenomenon. 
When  Gothic  was  invented,  houses  were  Gothic  as  well  as 
churches ;  and  when  the  Italian  style  superseded  the  Gothic, 
churches  were  Italian  as  well  as  houses.  If  there  is  a 
Gothic  spire  to  the  cathedral  of  Antwerp,  there  is  a  Gothic 
belfry  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  at  Brussels ;  if  Inigo  Jones 
builds  an  Italian  Whitehall,  Sir  Christopher  Wren  builds  an 
Italian  St.  Paul's.  But  now  you  live  under  one  school  of 
architecture,  and  worship  under  another.  What  do  you 
mean  by  doing  this  ?  Am  I  to  understand  that  you  are 
thinking  of  changing  your  architecture  back  to  Gothic ;  and 
that  you  treat  your  churches  experimentally,  because  it  does 
not  matter  what  mistakes  you  make  in  a  church  ?  Or  am  T 
to  understand  that  you  consider  Gothic  a  pre-eminent.y 
sacred  and  beautiful  mode  of  building,  which  you  think,  like 
the  fine  frankincense,  should  be  mixed  for  the  tabernacle 
only,  and  reserved  for  your  religious  services?     For  if  this  be 


TRAFFIC.  57 

the  feeling,  though  it  may  seem  at  first  as  if  it  were  graceful 
and  reverent,  you  will  find  that,  at  the  root  of  the  matter,  it 
signifies  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  you  have  separated 
four  religion  from  your  life. 

For  consider  what  a  wide  significance  this  fact  has ;  and 
.emember  that  it  is  not  you  only,  but  all  the  people  of  Eng- 
land, who  are  behaving  thus  just  now. 

You  have  all  got  into  the  habit  of  calling  the  church  '  the 
house  of  God.'  I  have  seen,  over  the  doors  of  many  church- 
es, the  legend  actually  carved,  '  This  is  the  house  of  God, 
and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven.'  Now,  note  where  that  legend 
comes  uom,  and  of  what  place  it  was  first  spoken.  A  boy 
leaves  his  father's  house  to  go  on  a  long  journey  on  foot,  tu 
visit  his  uncle  ;  he  has  to  cross  a  wild  hill-desert ;  just  as  if 
one  of  your  own  boys  had  to  cross  the  wolds  of  Westmore- 
land, to  visit  an  uncle  at  Carlisle.  The  second  or  third  day 
your  boy  finds  himself  somewhere  between  Hawes  and 
Brough,  in  the  midst  of  the  moors,  at  sunset.  It  is  stony 
ground,  and  boggy ;  he  cannot  go  one  foot  farther  that 
night.  Down  he  lies,  to  sleep,  on  Wharnside,  where  best  he 
may,  gathering  a  few  of  the  stones  together  to  put  under  his 
head; — so  wild  the  place  is,  he  cannot  get  anything  but 
Stones.  And  there,  lying  under  the  broad  night,  he  has  a 
dream ;  and  he  sees  a  ladder  set  up  on  the  earth,  and  the  top 

of  it  reaches  to  heaven,  and  the  angels  of  God  are  ascending 

3* 


58  THE    CKOWN    OF    WILD    OLIVX. 

and  descending  upon  it.  And  when  he  wakes  out  of  his 
eleej. ,  he  says,  '  How  dreadful  is  this  place ;  surely,  this  is 
none  other  than  the  house  of  God,  and  this  is  the  gate  of 
heaven.'  This  tlace,  observe ;  not  this  church ;  not  this 
city ;  not  this  stone,  even,  which  he  puts  up  for  a  memorial— 
the  piece  of  flint  on  which  his  head  has  lam.  But  this 
place;  this  windy  slope  of  Wharnside ;  this  moorland  hol- 
low, torrent-bitten,  snow-blighted ;  this  any  place  where 
God  lets  down  the  ladder.  And  how  are  you  to  know  where 
that  will  be  ?  or  how  are  you  to  determine  where  it  may  be, 
but  by  being  ready  for  it  always  ?  Do  you  know  where  the 
lightning  is  to  fall  next?  You  do  know  that,  partly;  you 
can  guide  the  lightning ;  but  you  cannot  guide  the  going 
forth  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  that  lightning  when  it  shines 
from  the  east  to  the  west. 

But  the  perpetual  and  insolent  warping  of  that  strong 
verse  to  serve  a  merely  ecclesiastical  purpose,  is  only  one  of 
the  thousand  instances  in  which  we  sink  back  into  gross 
Judaism.  We  call  our  churches  '  temples.'  Now,  you 
know,  or  ought  to  know,  they  are  n  )t  temples.  They  have 
never  had,  never  can  have,  anything  whatever  to  do  with 
temples.  They  are  'synagogues' — 'gathering  places' — 
where  you  gather  youi selves  together  as  an  assembly;  and 
by  not  calling  them  so,  you  again  miss  the  force  of  anothei 
mighty  text— 'Thou,  when  thou  prayest,  shalt  not  be  as  tb« 


TRAFFIC.  59 

hypocrites  are ;  for  they  love  to  pray  standing  in  the 
churches  '  [we  should  translate  it],  '  tbat  they  may  be  seen  of 
men.  But  thou,  when  thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet, 
and  when  thou  hast  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy  Father,'— 
which  is,  not  in  chancel  nor  in  aisle,  but  '  in  secret.' 

Now,  you  feel,  as  I  say  this  to  you — I  know  you  feel — as 
if  I  were  trying  to  take  away  the  honour  of  your  churches. 
Not  so ;  I  am  trying  to  prove  to  you  the  honour  of  your 
houses  and  your  hills;  I  am  trying  to  show  you — not  that 
the  Church  is  not  sacred — but  that  the  whole  Earth  is.  I 
would  have  you  feel,  what  careless,  what  constant,  what  infec- 
tious sin  there  is  in  all  modes  of  thought,  whereby,  in  calling 
your  churches  only  '  holy,'  you  call  your  hearths  and  homea 
profane ;  and  have  separated  yourselves  from  the  heathen  by 
casting  all  your  household  gods  to  the  ground,  instead  of 
recognising,  in  the  place  of  their  many  and  feeble  Lares,  the 
presence  of  your  One  and  Mighty  Lord  and  Lar. 

'  But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  our  Exchange  ? '  you  ask 
me,  impatiently.  My  dear  friends,  it  has  just  everything  to 
do  with  it ;  on  these  inner  and  great  questions  depend  all  the 
outer  and  little  ones;  and  if  you  have  asked  me  down  here 
to  speak  to  you,  because  you  had  before  been  interested  in 
anything  I  have  written,  you  must  know  that  all  I  have  yet 
said  about,  .irchitecture  was  to  show  this.  The  book  I  called 
The  Seven  Lamps'  wis  to  show  that  certain  right  states  of 


60  THE    CKOWJS    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

temper  and  moral  feeling  were  the  magic  powers  by  which 
all  good  architecture,  without  exception,  had  been  produced. 
'The  Stones  of  Venice'  had,  from  beginning  to  end,  no  other 
aim  than  to  show  that  the  Gothic  architecture  of  Venice  had 
arisen  out  of,  and  indicated  in  all  its  features,  a  state  of  pure 
national  faith,  and  of  domestic  virtue;  and  that  its  Renais 
sauce  architecture  had  arisen  out  of,  and  in  all  its  features  in- 
dicated, a  state  of  concealed  national  infidelity,  and  of  domes- 
tic corruption.  And  now,  you  ask  me  what  style  is  best  to 
build  in  ;  and  how  can  I  answer,  knowing  the  meaning  of  the 
two  styles,  but  by  another  question— do  you  mean  to  build 
as  Christians  or  as  Infidels  ?  And  still  more — do  you  mean 
to  build  as  honest  Christians  or  as  honest  Infidels?  as  tho- 
roughly and  confessedly  either  one  or  the  other?  You  don't 
like  to  be  asked  such  rude  questions.  I  cannot  help  it ;  they 
are  of  much  more  importance  than  this  Exchange  business; 
and  if  they  can  be  at  once  answered,  the  Exchange  business 
settles  itself  in  a  moment.  But,  before  I  press  them  farther,  I 
must  ask  leave  to  explain  one  point  clearly.  In  all  my  past 
work,  my  endeavour  has  been  to  show  that  good  architecture 
is  essentially  religious — the  production  of  a  faithful  and  vir- 
tuous, not  of  an  infidel  and  corrupted  people.  But  in  the 
course  of  doing  this,  I  have  had  also  to  show  that  good  archi- 
tecture is  not  ecclesiastical.  Teople  are  so  apt  to  look  upon 
religion  as  the  business  of  the  clergy,  not  their  own,  that  the 


TRAFFIC.  61 

moment  they  hear  of  anything  depending  on  '  religion,'  thej 
think  it  must  also  have  depended  on  the  priesthood  ;  and  I 
have  had  to  take  what  place  was  to  be  occupied  between 
these  two  errors,  and  right  both,  often  with  seeming  contra- 
diction. Good  architecture  is  the  work  of  good  and  believ- 
ing men ;  therefore,  you  say,  at  least  some  people  say,  '  Good 
architecture  must  essentially  have  been  the  work  of  the  cler 
gy,  not  of  the  laity.'  No — a  thousand  times  no ;  good  archi- 
tecture has  always  been  the  work  of  the  commonalty,  not  of 
the  clergy.  What,  you  say,  those  glorious  cathedrals — the 
pride  of  Europe — did  their  builders  not  form  Gothic  archi- 
tecture? No;  they  corrupted  Gothic  architecture.  Gothio 
wTas  formed  in  the  baron's  castle,  and  the  burgher's  street. 
It  was  formed  by  the  thoughts,  and  hands,  and  powers  of 
free  citizens  and  soldier  kings.  By  the  monk  it  was  used  as 
an  instrument  for  the  aid  of  his  superstition ;  when  that  su- 
perstition became  a  beautiful  madness,  and  the  best  hearts  of 
Europe  vainly  dreamed  and  pined  in  the  cloister,  and  vainly 
raged  and  perished  in  the  crusade — through  that  fury  of  per- 
verted  faith  and  wasted  war,  the  Gothic  rose  also  to  its  love- 
liest, most  fantastic,  and,  finally,  most  foolish  dreams;  and, 
in  those  dreams,  was  lost. 

I  hope,  now,  that  there  is  no  risk  of  your  misunderstanding 
me  when  I  come  to  the  gist  of  what  I  want  to  say  to-night — 
when  I  repeat,  that  every  great  national  architecture  has  been 


62  THE   CROWN   OP    WILD   OLIVE. 

the  result  and  exponent  of  a  great  national  religion.  Yon 
can't  have  bits  of  it  here,  bits  there— you  must  have  it  every- 
where, or  nowhere.  It  is  not  the  monopoly  of  a  clerical  com- 
pany— it  is  not  the  exponent  of  a  theological  dogma— it  is  not 
the  hieroglyphic  writing  of  an  initiated  priesthood ;  it  is  the 
manly  language  of  a  people  inspired  by  resolute  and  common 
purpose,  and  rendering  resolute  and  common  fidelity  to  the 
legible  laws  of  an  undoubted  God. 

Now,  there  have  as  yet  been  three  distinct  schools  of  Eu- 
ropean architecture.  I  say,  European,  because  Asiatic  and 
African  architectures  belong  so  entirely  to  other  races  and 
climates,  that  there  is  no  question  of  them  here ;  only,  in  pass- 
ing, I  will  simply  assure  you  that  whatever  is  good  or  great 
in  Egypt,  and  Syria,  and  India,  is  just  good  or  great  for  the 
same  reasons  as  the  buildings  on  our  side  of  the  Bosphorua. 
We  Europeans,  then,  have  had  three  great  religions:  the 
Greek,  which  was  the  worship  of  the  God  of  Wisdom  and 
.Power;  the  Mediaeval,  which  was  the  Worship  of  the  God 
of  Judgment  and  Consolation;  the  Renaissance,  which  waa 
the  worship  of  the  God  of  Pride  and  Beauty;  these  three  we 
have  had — they  are  past, — and  now,  at  last,  we  English  have 
got  a  fourth  religion,  and  a  God  of  our  own,  about  which  I 
want  to  ask  you.  But  I  must  explain  these  three  old  ones 
first. 

1  repeat,  first,  the  Greeks  essentially  worshipped  the  God 


IKAFFIC.  63 

of  Wisdom;  so  that  whatever  contended  against  thtii  reli 
gion, — to  the  Jews  a  stumbling  block. — was,  to  the  Greeks — 
Foolishness. 

The  first  Greek  idea  of  Deity  was  that  expressed  in  the 
word,  of  which  we  keep  the  remnant  in  our  words  '  Z^'-urnal ' 
and  'Di-yine' — the  god  of  Day,  Jupiter  the  revealer.  Athena 
is  his  daughter,  but  especially  daughter  of  the  Intellect, 
springing  armed  from  the  head.  We  are  only  with  the  help 
of  recent  investigation  beginning  to  penetrate  the  depth  of 
meaning  couched  under  the  Athenaic  symbols:  but  I  may 
note  rapidly,  that  her  aegis,  the  mantle  with  the  serpent 
fringes,  in  which  she  often,  in  the  best  statues,  is  represented 
as  folding  up  her  left  hand  for  better  guard,  and  the  Gorgon 
on  her  shield,  are  both  representative  mainly  of  the  chilling 
horror  and  sadness  (turning  men  to  stone,  as  it  were,)  of  the 
outmost  and  superficial  spheres  of  knowledge — that  know- 
ledge which  separates,  in  bitterness,  hardness,  and  sorrow, 
the  heart  of  the  full-grown  man  from  the  heart  of  the  child. 
For  out  of  imperfect  knowledge  spring  terror,  dissension, 
danger,  and  disdain ;  but  from  perfect  knowledge,  given  by 
the  full-revealed  Athena,  strength  and  peace,  in  sign  of  which 
she  is  crowned  with  the  olive  spray,  and  bears  the  resistless 
Bpear. 

This,  then,  was  the  Greek  conception  of  purest  Deity, 
and  every  habit  of  life,  and  every  form  of  his  art  developed 


64  THE    CKOWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

themselves  from  the  seeking  this  bright,  serene,  resistles* 
wisdom ;  and  setting  himself,  as  a  man,  to  do  things  ever- 
more lightly  and  strongly ;  *  not  with  any  ardent  affection 
r  ultimate  hope;  but  with  a  resolute  and  continent  energy 
of  will,  as  knowing  that  for  failure  there  was  no  consolation, 
and  for  sin  there  was  no  remission.  And  the  Greek  architet 
ture  rose  unerring,  bright,  clearly  defined,  and  self-contained. 
Next  followed  in  Europe  the  great  Christian  faith,  which 
was  essentially  the  religion  of  Comfort.  Its  great  doctrine 
is  the  remission  of  sins ;  for  which  cause  it  happens,  too 
often,  in  certain  jmases  of  Christianity,  that  sin  and  sickness 
themselves  are  partly  glorified,  as  if,  the  more  you  had  to  be 
healed  of,  the  more  divine  was  the  healing.  The  practical 
result  of  this  doctrine,  in  art,  is  a  continual  contemplation 
of  sin  and  disease,  and  of  imaginary  states  of  purification 
from  them ;   thus  we  have   an  architecture  conceived  in  a 

*  It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  the  Greek  worship,  or  seeking,  was 
chiefly  of  Beauty.  It  was  essentially  of  Rightness  and  Strength,  founded 
on  Forethought :  the  principal  character  of  Greek  art  is  not  Beauty,  but 
Design:  and  the  Dorian  Apollo- worship  and  Athenian  Virgin-worship 
are  both  expressions  of  adoration  of  divine  Wisdom  and  Purity.  Next  to 
these  great  deities  rank,  in  power  over  the  national  mind,  Dionysus  and 
3ere8,  the  givers  of  human  strength  and  lifo :  then,  for  heroic  example, 
Hercules.  There  is  no  Venus-worship  among  the  Greeks  in  the  great 
tiroeB :  and  the  Muses  are  essentially  teachers  of  Truth,  and  of  its  nar 
moniea. 


TRAFFIC.  65 

mingled  sentiment  of  melancholy  and  aspiration,  partly 
severe,  partly  luxuriant,  which  will  bend  itself  to  every  one 
of  our  needs,  and  every  one  of  our  fancies,  and  be  strong  or 
w^ak  with  us,  as  we  are  strong  or  weak  ourselves.  It  is,  of 
all  architecture,  the  basest,  when  base  people  build  it — ol 
all,  the  noblest,  when  built  by  the  noble. 

And  now  note  that  both  these  religions — Greek  and  Medi- 
seval — perished  by  falsehood  in  their  own  main  purpose. 
The  Greek  religion  of  Wisdom  perished  in  a  false  philosophy 
— 'Oppositions  .of  science,  falsely  so  called.'  The  Mediaeval 
religion  of  Consolation  perished  in  false  comfort ;  in  remis- 
sion of  sins  given  lyingly.  It  was  the  selling  of  absolution 
that  ended  the  Mediaeval  faith ;  and  I  can  tell  you  more,  it  ia 
the  selling  of  absolution  which,  to  the  end  of  time,  will  mark 
false  Christianity.  Pure  Christianity  gives  her  remission  of 
sins  only  by  ending  them ;  but  false  Christianity  gets  her 
remission  of  sins  by  compounding  for  them.  And  there  are 
many  ways  of  compounding  for  them.  We  English  have 
beautiful  little  quiet  ways  of  buying  absolution,  whether  in  low 
Church  or  high,  far  more  cunning  than  any  of  Tetzel's  trading. 

Then,  thirdly,  there  followed  the  religion  of  Pleasure,  in 
which  all  Europe  gave  itself  to  luxury,  ending  in  death. 
First,  bals  masques  in  every  saloon,  and  then  guillotines  in 
every  square.  And  all  these  three  worships  issue  in  vast 
temple  building.      Your  Greek    worshipped    Wisdom,  and 


66  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

built  you  tilt.  Parthenon — the  Virgin's  temple.  The  Media) 
val  worshipped  Consolation,  and  built  you  Virgin  temples 
also — but  to  our  Lady  of  Salvation.  Then  the  Revivalist 
worshipped  beauty,  of  a  sort,  and  built  you  Versailles,  and 
the  Vatican.  Now,  lastly,  will  you  tell  me  what  we  worship, 
and  what  we  build? 

You  know  we  are  speaking  always  of  the  real,  active,  con- 
tinual, national  worship  ;  that  by  which  men  act  while  they 
live ;  not  that  which  they  talk  of  when  they  die.  Now,  we 
have,  indeed,  a  nominal  religion,  to  which  we  pay  tithes  of 
property  and  sevenths  of  time  ;  but  we  have  also  a  practical 
and  earnest  religion,  to  which  we  devote  nine-tenths  of  our 
property  and  sixth-sevenths  of  *ur  time.  And  we  dispute  a 
great  deal  about  the  nominal  religion  ;  but  we  are  all  unani- 
mous about  this  practical  one,  of  which  I  think  you  will  admit 
that  the  ruling  goddess  may  be  best  generally  described  as 
the  '  Goddess  of  Getting-on,'  or  '  Britannia  of  the  Market.' 
The  Athenians  had  an  'Athena  Agoraia,'  or  Minerva  of  the 
Market;  but  she  was  a  subordinate  type  of  their  goddess, 
while  our  Britannia  Agoraia  is  the  principal  type  of  ours. 
And  all  your  great  architectural  works,  are,  of  course,  built 
to  her.  It  is  long  since  you  built  a  great  cathedral  ;  and  how 
you  would  laugh  at  me,  if  I  proposed  building  a  cathedral  on 
the  top  of  one  of  these  hills  of  yours,  taking  it  for  an  Aero- 
)olis !     But  your  railroad  mounds,  prolonged  masses  of  AcrC  • 


TRAFFIC.  67 

polis ;  your  railroad  stations,  vaster  than  the  Parthenon,  and 
innumerable ;  your  chimneys,  how  much  more  mighty  and 
costly  than  cathedral  spires !  your  harbour-piers ;  your 
warehouses  ;  your  exchanges ! — all  these  are  built  to  your 
great  Goddess  of  '  Getting-on ; '  and  she  has  formed,  and 
will  continue  to  form,  your  architecture,  as  long  as  you  wor- 
ship her;  and  it  is  quite  vain  to  ask  me  to  tell  you  how  to 
build  to  her;  you  know  far  better  than  I. 

There  might  indeed,  on  some  theories,  be  a  conceivably 
good  architecture  for  Exchanges — that  is  to  say  if  there  were 
any  heroism  in  the  fact  or  deed  of  exchange,  which  might  bo 
typically  carved  on  the  outside  of  your  building.  For,  you 
know,  all  beautiful  architecture  must  be  adorned  with  sculp- 
ture or  painting;  and  for  sculpture  or  painting,  you  must 
have  a  subject.  And  hitherto  it  has  been  a  received  opinion 
among  the  nations  of  the  world  that  the  only  light  subjects 
for  either,  were  heroisms  of  some  sort.  Even  on  his  pots  and 
his  flagons,  the  Greek  put  a  Hercules  slaying  lions,  or  an 
Apollo  slaying  serpents,  or  Bacchus  slaying  melancholy 
giants,  and  earth-born  despondencies.  On  his  temples,  the 
Greek  put  contests  of  great  warriors  in  founding  states,  or  )f 
gods  with  evil  spirits.  On  his  houses  and  temples  alike,  tho 
Christian  put  carvings  of  angels  conquering  devils;  or  of 
hero-martyrs  exchanging  this  world  for  another;  subject 
Inappropriate,  I  think,  to  our  manner  of  exchauge  here.     And 


68  THE   CBOWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

the  Master  of  Christians  not  only  left  his  followers  without 
any  orders  as  to  the  sculpture  of  affairs  of  exchange  on  the 
outside  of  buildings,  but  gave  some  strong  evidence  of  hU 
dislike  of  affairs  of  exchange  within  them.  And  yet  there 
might  surely  be  a  heroism  in  such  affairs ;  and  all  commerce 
become  a  kind  of  selling  of  doves,  not  impious.  The  wonder 
has  always  been  great  to  me,  that  heroism  has  never  been 
supposed  to  be  in  anywise  consistent  with  the  practice  of 
supplying  people  with  food,  or  clothes ;  but  rather  with  that 
of  quartering  oneself  upon  them  for  food,  and  stripping  them 
of  their  clothes.  Spoiling  of  armour  is  an  heroic  deed  in  all 
ages ;  but  the  selling  of  clothes,  old,  or  new,  has  never  taken 
any  colour  of  magnanimity.  Yet  one  does  not  see  why  feed- 
ing the  hungry  and  clothing  the  naked  should  ever  become 
base  businesses,  even  when  engaged  in  on  a  large  scale.  If 
one  could  contrive  to  attach  the  notion  of  conquest  to  them 
anyhow  ?  so  that,  supposing  there  were  anywhere  an  obsti- 
nate race,  who  refused  to  be  comforted,  one  might  take  some 
pride  in  giving  them  compulsory  comfort;  and  as  it  were, 
*  occupying  a  country'  with  one's  gifts,  instead  of  one's 
armies  ?  If  one  could  only  consider  it  as  much  a  victory  to 
get  a  barren  field  sown,  as  to  get  an  eared  field  stripped ;  and 
contend  who  should  build  villages,  instead  of  who  should 
'•carry'  them.  Are  not  all  forms  of  heroism,  conceivable  in 
doing  these  serviceable  deeds  ?    You  doubt  who  is  slxungest  ? 


TRAFFIC.  69 

It  might  be  ascertained  by  push  of  spade,  as  well  as  push  of 
sword.  Who  is  wisest?  There  are  witty  things  to  be 
thought  of  in  planning  other  business  than  campaigns.  Who 
is  bravest?  There  are  always  the  elements  to  fight  with 
stronger  than  men ;  and  nearly  as  merciless.  The  only 
absolutely  and  unapproachably  heroic  element  in  the  soldier's 
work  seems  to  be — that  he  is  paid  little  for  it — and  regularly: 
while  you  traffickers,  and  exchangers,  and  others  occupied  in 
presumably  benevolent  business,  like  to  be  paid  much  for  it — 
and  by  chance.  I  never  can  make  out  how  it  is  that  a 
knight-errant  does  not  expect  co  be  paid  for  his  trouble,  but 
a  pedlar-errant  always  does ; — that  people  are  willing  to  take 
hard  knocks  for  nothing,  but  never  to  sell  ribands  cheap ; — ■ 
that  they  are  ready  to  go  on  fervent  crusades  to  recover  the 
tomb  of  a  buried  God,  never  on  any  travels  to  fulfil  the 
orders  of  a  living  God  ; — that  they  will  go  anywhere  barefoot 
to  preach  their  faith,  but  must  be  Avell  bribed  to  practise  it, 
and  ai*e  perfectly  ready  to  give  the  Gospel  gratis,  but  never 
the  loaves  and  fishes.  If  you  chose  to  take  the  matter  up  on 
any  such  soldierly  principle,  to  do  your  commerce,  and  your 
feeding  of  nations,  for  fixed  salaries  ;  and  to  be  as  particular 
about  giving  people  the  best  food,  and  the  best  cloth,  as 
soldiers  are  about  giving  them  the  best  gunpowder,  I  could 
carve  something  for  you  on  your  exchange  worth  looking  at 
But  I  can  only  at  present  suggest  decorating  its  frieze  with 


70  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

pendant  purses;  and  making  its  pillars  bioad  at  the  ba  hi 
the  sticking  of  bills.  And  in  the  innermost  chamber,.  t,f  it 
there  might  be  a  statue  of  Britannia  of  the  Market,  who  may 
have,  perhaps  advisably,  a  partridge  for  her  crest,  typical  at 
once  of  her  courage  in  fighting  for  noble  ideas ;  and  of  her 
interest  in  game;  and  round  its  neck  the  inscription  in  golden 
letters,  '  Perdix  fovit  quse  non  peperit.'  *  Then,  for  her 
spear,  she  might  have  a  weaver's  beam;  and  on  her  shield, 
instead  of  her  Cross,  the  Milanese  boar,  semi-fleeced,  with 
the  town  of  Gennesaret  proper,  in  the  field  and  the  legend 
'  In  the  best  market,'  and  her  corslet,  of  leather,  folded  over 
her  heart  in  the  shape  of  a  purse,  with  thirty  slits  in  it  for  a 
piece  of  money  to  go  in  at,  on  each  day  of  the  month.  And 
I  doubt  not  but  that  people  would  come  to  see  your  exchange, 
and  its  goddess,  with  applause. 

Nevertheless,  I  want  to  point  out  to  you  certain  strange 
characters  in  this  goddess  of  yours.  She  differs  from  the 
great  Greek  and  Mediaeval  deities  essentially  in  two  things- 
first,  as  to  the  continuance  of  her  presumed  power ;  secondly, 
as  to  the  extent  of  it. 

1st,  as  to  the  Continuance. 

*  Jerem.  xvii.  11  (best  in  Septuagint  and  Vulgate).  'As  the  partridge, 
fostering  what  she  brought  not  forth,  so  he  that  getteth  riches,  not  by 
right  shall  leave  them  in  the  midst  of  his  days,  and  at  his  end  shall  be  a 
fooL' 


TRAFFIC.  71 

The  Greek  Goddess  of  Wisdom  gave  continual  increase  of 
wisdom,  as  the  Christian  Spirit  of  Comfort  (or  Comforter) 
continual  increase  of  comfort.  There  was  no  question,  with 
these,  of  any  limit  or  cessation  of  function.  But  with  your 
Agora  Goddess,  that  is  just  the  most  important  question. 
Getting  on — but  where  to?  Gathering  together — but  how 
much?  Do  you  mean  to  gather  always — never  to  spend? 
If  so,  I  wish  you  joy  of  your  goddess,  for  I  am  just  as  well 
off  as  you,  without  the  trouble  of  worshipping  her  at  all. 
But  if  you  do  not  spend,  somebody  else  will — somebody  else 
must.  And  it  is  because  of  this  (among  many  other  such 
errors)  that  I  have  fearlessly  declared  your  so-called  science 
of  Political  Economy  to  be  no  science ;  because,  namely,  it 
has  omitted  the  study  of  exactly  the  most  important  branch 
of  the  business — the  study  of  spending.  For  spend  you 
aiust,  and  as  much  as  you  make,  ultimately.  You  gather 
corn: — will  you  bury  England  under  a  heap  of  grain ;  or 
will  you,  when  you  have  gathered,  finally  eat?  You  gather 
gold : — will  you  make  your  house-roofs  of  it,  or  pave  your 
streets  with  it  ?  That  is  still  one  way  of  spending  it.  But 
if  you  keep  it,  that  you  may  get  more,  I'll  give  you  more ; 
111  give  you  all  the  gold  you  want — all  you  can  imagine — 
if  you  can  tell  me  what  you'll  do  with  it.  You  shall  have 
thousands  of  gold  pieces  ;— thousands  of  thousands — millions 
— mountains,  of  gold :    where  will  you  keep   them?     Will 


72  THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

you  put  an  Olympus  of  silver  upon  a  golden  Pelion — make 
Ossa  like  a  wart?  Do  you  think  the  rain  and  dew  would 
then  come  down  to  you,  in  the  streams  from  such  mountains, 
more  blessedly  than  they  will  down  the  mountains  which 
God  has  made  for  you,  of  moss  and  whinstone  ?  But  it  is 
not  gold  that  you  want  to  gather!  What  is  it?  green- 
backs ?  No  ;  not  those  neither.  What  is  it  then — is  it 
ciphers  after  a  capital  I  ?  Cannot  you  practise  writing 
ciphers,  and  write  as  many  as  you  want  ?  Write  ciphers  for 
an  hour  every  morning,  in  a  big  book,  and  say  every  even- 
ing, I  am  worth  all  those  noughts  more  than  I  was  yester- 
day. Won't  that  do  ?  Well,  what  in  the  name  of  Plutus  is 
it  you  want?  Not  gold,  not  greenbacks,  not  ciphers  after  a 
capital  I  ?  You  will  have  to  answer,  after  all,  '  No ;  we 
want,  somehow  or  other,  money's  worth.''  Well,  what  is 
that  ?  Let  your  Goddess  of  Getting-on  discover  it,  and  let 
her  learn  to  stay  therein. 

II.  But  there  is  yet  another  question  to  be  asked  respect- 
ing this  Goddess  of  Getting-on.  The  first  was  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  her  power ;  the  second  is  of  its  extent. 

Pallas  and  the  Madonna  were  supposed  to  be  all  the 
world's  Pallas,  and  all  the  world's  Madonna.  They  could 
teach  all  men,  and  they  could  comfort  all  men.  But,  look 
strictly  into  the  nature  of  the  power  of  your  Goddess  of 
Getting-on  ;  and  you  will  find   she  is  the  Goddess — not  of 


TRAFFIC.  73 

everybody's  getting  on — but  only  of  somebody's  getting  on. 
This  is  a  vital,  or  rather  deathful,  distinction.  Examine  it  in 
your  own  ideal  of  the  state  of  national  life  which  this  God 
dess  is  to  evoke  and  maintain.  I  asked  you  what  it  was, 
when  I  was  last  here ;  * — you  have  never  told  me.  Now, 
shall  I  try  to  tell  you? 

Your  ideal  of  human  life  then  is,  I  think,  that  it  should  be 
passed  in  a  pleasant  undulating  world,  with  iron  and  coal 
everywhere  underneath  it.  On  each  pleasant  bank  of  this 
world  is  to  be  a  beautiful  mansion,  with  two  wings;  and 
stables,  and  coach-houses;  a  moderately  sized  park;  a  large 
garden  and  hot-bouses ;  and  pleasant  carriage  drives  through 
the  shrubberies.  In  this  mansion  are  to  live  the  favoured 
votaries  of  the  Goddess ;  the  English  gentleman,  with  his 
gracious  wife,  and  bis  beautiful  family ;  always  able  to  have 
the  boudoir  and  the  jewels  for  the  wife,  and  the  beautiful 
ball  dresses  for  the  daughters,  and  hunters  for  the  sons,  and 
a  shooting  in  the  Highlands  for  bimself.  At  the  bottom  of 
the  bank,  is  to  be  the  mill ;  not  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
long,  with  a  steam  engine  at  each  end,  and  two  in  the  mid- 
dle, and  a  chimney  three  hundred  feet  high.  In  tbis  mill  are 
to  be  in  constant  employment  from  eight  hundred  to  a  thou 
sand  workers,  who  never  drink,  never  strike,  always  go  to 

*  Two  Paths,  p.  98 
4 


74  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

church  on  Sunday,  and  always  express  themselves  in  respect 
rul  language. 

Is  not  that,  broadly,  and  in  the  main  features,  the  kind  of 
thing  you  propose  to  yourselves  ?  It  is  very  pretty  indeed 
seen  from  above ;  not  at  all  so  pretty,  seen  from  below. 
For,  observe,  while  to  one  family  this  deity  is  indeed  the 
Goddess  of  Getting  on,  to  a  thousand  families  she  is  the 
Goddess  of  not  Getting  on.  '  Nay,'  you  say,  '  they  have  all 
their  chance.'  Yes,  so  has  every  one  in  a  lottery,  but  there 
must  always  be  the  same  number  of  blanks.  '  Ah !  but  in 
a  lottery  it  is  not  skill  and  intelligence  which  take  the  lead, 
but  blind  chance.'  What  then !  do  you  think  the  old 
practice,  that  'they  should  take  who  have  the  power,  and 
they  should  keep  who  can,'  is  less  iniquitous,  when  the 
power  has  become  power  of  brains  instead  of  fist?  and 
that,  though  we  may  not  take  advantage  of  a  child's  or  a 
woman's  weakness,  we  may  of  a  man's  foolishness  ?  '  Nay, 
but  finally,  work  must  be  done,  and  some  one  must  be  at  the 
top,  some  one  at  the  bottom.'  Granted,  my  friends.  Work 
must  always  be,  and  captains  of  work  must  always  be  ;  and 
if  you  in  the  least  remember  the  tone  of  any  of  my  writings, 
you  must  know  that  they  are  thought  unfit  for  this  age, 
because  they  are  always  insisting  on  need  of  government, 
and  speaking  with  scorn  of  liberty.  But  I  beg  you  to 
observe   that    there   is    a   wide   difference    between    being 


TRAFFIC.  16 

captains  or  governors  of  work,  and  taking  the  profits  of  it, 
It  does  not  follow,  because  you  are  general  of  an  army,  that 
you  are  to  take  all  the  treasure,  or  land,  it  wins  (if  it  fight 
for  treasure  or  land) ;  neither,  because  you  are  king  of  a 
nation,  that  you  are  to  consume  all  the  profits  of  the  nation's 
work.  Real  kings,  on  the  contrary,  are  known  invariably 
by  their  doing  quite  the  reverse  of  this, — by  their  taking 
the  least  possible  quantity  of  the  nation's  work  for  themselves. 
There  is  no  test  of  real  kinghood  so  infallible  as  that.  Does 
the  crowned  creature  live  simply,  bravely,  unostentatiously  ? 
probably  he  is  a  King.  Does  he  cover  his  body  with  jewels, 
and  his  table  with  delicates?  in  all  probability  he  is  not  a 
King.  It  is  possible  he  may  be,  as  Solomon  was  ;  but  that  is 
when  the  nation  shares  his  splendour  with  him.  Solomon 
made  gold,  not  only  to  be  in  his  own  palace  as  stones,  but  to 
be  in  Jerusalem  as  stones.  But  even  so,  for  the  most  part, 
these  splendid  kinghoods  expire  in  ruin,  and  only  the  true 
kinghoods  live,  which  are  of  royal  labourers  governing 
loyal  labourers ;  who,  both  leading  rough  lives,  establish 
Ihe  true  dynasties.  Conclusively  you  will  find  that  because 
you  are  king  of  a  nation,  it  does  not  follow  that  you  are 
to  gather  for  yourself  all  the  wealth  of  that  nation ;  neither, 
because  you  are  king  of  a  small  part  of  the  nation, 
and  lord  over  the  means  ol  its  maintenance — over  field,  or 
mill,    or     mine,    are    you    to    take     all     the     produce     of 


?6  THE    GROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

that    piece    of   the    foundation    of    rational    existence    foi 
yourself. 

Vou  will  tell  me  I  need  not  preach  ngainat  these  things 
for  I  cannot  mend  them.  No,  good  friends,  I  cannot;  but 
you  can,  and  you  will ;  or  something  else  can  and  will.  Do 
you  think  these  phenomena  are  to  stay  always  in  their  pre 
sent  power  or  aspect  ?  All  history  shows,  on  the  contrary, 
that  to  be  the  exact  thing  they  never  can  do.  Change 
must  come ;  but  it  is  ours  to  determine  whether  change  of 
growth,  or  change  of  death.  Shall  the  Parthenon  be  in  ruins 
on  its  rock,  and  Bolton  priory  in  its  meadow,  but  these  mills 
of  yours  be  the  consummation  of  the  buildings  of  the  earth, 
and  their  wheels  be  as  the  wheels  of  eternity  ?  Think  you 
that  '  men  may  come,  and  men  may  go,'  but — mills — go  on 
for  ever  ?  Not  so ;  out  of  these,  better  or  worse  shall  come ; 
and  it  is  for  you  to  choose  which. 

I  know  that  none  of  this  wrong  is  done  with  deliberate 
purpose.  I  know,  on  the  contrary,  that  you  wish  your  work- 
men well ;  that  you  do  much  for  them,  and  that  you  desire  to 
do  more  for  them,  if  you  saw  your  way  to  it  safely.  I  know 
that  many  of  you  have  done,  and  are  every  day  doing,  what- 
ever you  feel  to  be  in  your  power ;  and  that  even  all  this 
wrong  and  misery  are  brought  about  by  a  warped  sense  of 
duty,  each  of  you  striving  to  do  his  best,  without  n  Hieing 
that  this  best  is  essentially  and  centrally  the  best  for  himself, 


TRAFFIC.  11 

not  for  others.  And  all  this  has  come  of  the  spreading  of 
that  thrice  accursed,  thrice  impious  doctrine  of  the  modern 
economist,  that '  To  do  the  best  for  yourself,  is  finally  to  do 
the  best  for  others.'  Friends,  our  great  Master  said  not  so ; 
and  most  absolutely  we  shall  find  this  world  is  not  made  so. 
Indeed,  to  do  the  best  for  others,  is  finally  to  do  the  best  for 
ourselves ;  but  it  will  not  do  to  have  our  eyes  fixed  on  that 
issue.  The  Pagans  had  got  beyond  that.  Hear  what  a  Pagan 
says  of  this  matter ;  hear  what  were,  perhaps,  the  last  writ- 
ten words  of  Plato, — if  not  the  last  actually  written  (for  this 
we  cannot  know),  yet  assuredly  in  fact  and  power  his  parting 
words — in  which,  endeavouring  to  give  full  crowning  and 
harmonious  close  to  all  his  thoughts,  and  to  speak  the  sum  of 
them  by  the  imagined  sentence  of  the  Great  Spirit,  his 
strength  and  his  heart  fail  him,  and  the  words  cease,  broken 
off  for  ever.  It  is  the  close  of  the  dialogue  called  '  Critias,' 
in  which  he  describes,  partly  from  real  tradition,  partly  in 
ideal  dream,  the  early  state  of  Athens ;  and  the  genesis,  and 
order,  and  religion,  of  the  fabled  isle  of  Atlantis ;  in  which 
genesis  he  conceives  the  same  first  perfection  and  final  dege- 
neracy of  man,  which  in  our  own  Scriptural  tradition  is  ex- 
pressed  by  saying  that  the  Sons  of  God  intermarried  with  the 
daughters  of  men,  for  he  supposes  the  earliest  race  to  have 
been  indeed  the  children  of  God  ;  and  to  have  corrupted  them 
selves,  until   4  their  spot  was  not  the  spot  of  his  children: 


78  THE  CROWN    OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

And  this,  he  says,  was  the  end  ;  that  indeed  '  through  manj 
generations,  so  long  as  the  God's  nature  in  them  yet  was  full, 
they  were  submissive  to  the  sacred  laws,  and  carried  them* 
selves  lovingly  to  all  that  had  kindred  with  them  in  divine- 
ness  ;  for  their  uttermost  spirit  was  faithful  and  true,  and  in 
every  wise  great ;  so  that,  in  all  meekness  of  wisdom,  they 
dealt  with  each  other,  and  took  all  the  chances  of  life  ;  and  de- 
spising all  things  except  virtue,  they  cared  little  what  hap- 
pened day  by  day,  and  bore  lightly  the  burden  of  gold  and  of 
possessions;  for  they  saw  that,  if  only  their  common  love 
and  virtue  increased,  all  these  things  would  be  increased  to- 
gether with  them ;  but  to  set  their  esteem  and  ardent  pur- 
suit upon  material  possession  would  be  to  lose  that  first,  and 
their  virtue  and  affection  together  with  it.  And  by  such 
reasoning,  and  what  of  the  divine  nature  remained  in  them, 
they  gained  all  this  greatness  of  which  we  have  already  told  ; 
but  when  the  God's  part  of  them  faded  and  became  extinct, 
being  mixed  again  and  again,  and  effaced  by  the  prevalent 
mortality ;  and  the  human  nature  at  last  exceeded,  they  then 
became  unable  to  endure  the  courses  of  fortune  ;  and  fell  into 
shapelessness  of  life,  and  baseness  in  the  sight  of  him  who 
could  see,  having  lost  everything  that  was  fairest  of  their  hon- 
our ;  while  to  the  blind  hearts  which  could  not  discern  the 
true  life,  tending  to  happiness,  it  seemed  that  they  were  then 
chiefly  noble  and  happy,  being  filled  with  all  iniquity  of  inor 


TRAFFIC.  79 

dinate  possession  and  power.  Whereupon,  the  God  of  Gods, 
whose  Kinghood  is  in  laws,  beholding  a  once  just  nation  thus 
cast  into  misery,  and  desiring  to  lay  such  punishment  upon 
them  as  might  make  them  repent  into  restraining,  gathered 
together  all  the  gods  into  his  dwelling-place,  which  from  hea- 
ven's  centre   overlooks  whatever  has  part  in  creation ;  and 

Having  assembled  them,  he  said' 

The  rest  is  silence.  So  ended  are  the  last  words  of  the 
chief  wisdom  of  the  heathen,  spoken  of  this  idol  of  riches; 
this  idol  of  yours  ;  this  golden  image  high  by  measureless  cu- 
bits, set  up  where  your  green  fields  of  England  are  furnace- 
burnt  into  the  likeness  of  the  plain  of  Dura :  this  idol,  forbid- 
den to  us,  first  of  all  idols,  by  our  own  Master  and  faith;  for- 
bidden to  us  also  by  every  human  lip  that  has  ever,  in  any  age 
or  people,  been  accounted  of  as  able  to  speak  according  to 
the  purposes  of  God.  Continue  to  make  that  forbidden  deity 
your  principal  one,  and  soon  no  more  art,  no  more  science,  no 
more  pleasure  will  be  possible.  Catastrophe  will  come  ;  or 
worse  than  catastrophe,  slow  mouldering  and  withering  into 
Hades.  But  if  you  can  fix  some  conception  of  a  true  human 
state  of  life  to  be  striven  for — life  for  all  men  as  for  your 
Belves — if  you  can  determine  some  honest  and  simple  order 
of  existence ;  following  those  trodden  ways  of  wisdom,  which 
are  pleasantness,  and  seeking  her  quiet  and  withdrawn  paths, 
which  are  peace  ; — then,  and  60  sanctifying  wealth  into  'com- 


80  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

mon wealth,'  all  your  art,  your  literature,  your  daily  labours.: 
your  domestic  affection,  and  citizen's  duty,  will  join  and  in 
crease  into  one  magnificent  harmony.  You  will  know  then 
how  to  build,  well  enough ;  you  will  build  with  stone  well 
but  with  flesh  better;  temples  not  made  with  hands,  but 
riveted  of  hearts ;  and  that  kind  of  marble,  crimson-veined, 
is  indeed  eternal 


WAR 


LECTURE  m. 

(  Delivered  at  the  Royal  Military  Academy,  Woolwich  ) 

WAR. 

Young  soldiers,  I  do  not  doubt  but  that  many  of  you  came 
unwillingly  to-night,  and  many  in  merely  contemptuous 
curiosity,  to  hear  what  a  writer  on  painting  could  possibly 
say,  or  would  venture  to  say,  respecting  your  great  art  of 
war.  You  may  well  think  within  yourselves,  that  a  painter 
might,  perhaps  without  immodesty,  lecture  younger  painters 
upon  painting,  but  not  young  lawyers  upon  law,  nor  young 
physicians  upon  medicine  —  least  of  all,  it  may  seem  to  you, 
young  warriors  upon  war.  And,  indeed,  when  I  was  asked 
to  address  you,  I  declined  at  first,  and  declined  long ;  for  I 
felt  that  you  would  not  be  interested  in  my  special  business, 
and  would  certainly  think  there  was  small  need  for  me  to 
come  to  teach  you  yours.  Nay,  I  knew  that  there  ought 
to  be  no  such  need,  for  the  great  veteran  soldiers  of  Eng- 
land ave  now  men  every  way  so  thoughtful,  so  noble,  and  so 
good,  that  no  other  teaching  than  their  knightly  example,  and 
their  few  words  of  grave  and  tried  counsel  should  be  eithei 


84  THE   CROWN    OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

necessary  for  you,  or  even,  without  assurance  of  due  modesty 
in  the  offerer,  endured  by  you. 

But  being  asked,  not  once  nor  twice,  I  have  not  ventured 
Persistently  to  refuse ;  and  I  will  try,  in  very  few  words,  to 
lay  before  you  some  reason  why  you  should  accept  my 
xcuse,  and  hear  me  patiently.  You  may  imagine  that  your 
work  is  wholly  foreign  to,  and  separate  from  mine.  So  far 
from  that,  all  the  pure  and  noble  arts  of  peace  are  founded  on 
war;  no  great  art  ever  yet  rose  on  earth,  but  among  a  nation 
of  soldiers.  There  is  no  art  among  a  shepherd  people,  if 
it  remains  at  peace.  There  is  no  art  among  an  agricultural 
people,  if  it  remains  at  peace.  Commerce  is  barely  consist- 
ent with  fine  art ;  but  cannot  produce  it.  Manufacture  not 
only  is  unable  to  produce  it,  but  invariably  destroys  whatever 
seeds  of  it  exist.  There  is  no  great  art  possible  to  a  nation 
but  that  which  is  based  on  battle. 

Now,  though  I  hope  you  love  fighting  for  its  own  sake, 
you  must,  I  imagine,  be  surprised  at  my  assertion  that  there 
is  any  such  good  fruit  of  fighting.  You  supposed,  probably, 
that  your  office  was  to  defend  the  works  of  peace,  but 
certainly  not  to  found  them:  nay,  the  common  course  of 
war,  you  may  have  thought,  was  only  to  destroy  them.  And 
truly,  I  who  tell  you  this  of  the  use  of  war,  should  have 
been  the  last  of  men  to  tell  you  so,  had  I  trusted  my  own 
experience   only.     Hear  why :   I  have  given  a   considerable 


WAB.  85 

part  of  my  life  to  the  investigation  of  Venetian  painting 
and  the  result  of  that  enquiry  was  my  fixing  upon  one  man 
as  the  greatest  of  all  Venetians,  aud  therefore,  as  I  believed, 
of  all  painters  whatsoever.  I  formed  this  faith,  (whether 
right  or  wrong  matters  at  present  nothing,)  in  the  supremacy 
of  the  painter  Tintoret,  under  a  roof  covered  with  his 
pictures ;  and  of  those  pictures,  three  of  the  noblest  were 
then  in  the  form  of  shreds  of  ragged  canvas,  mixed  up  with 
the  laths  of  the  roof,  rent  through  by  three  Austrian  shells. 
Now  it  is  not  every  lecturer  who  could  tell  you  that  he  had 
seen  three  of  his  favourite  pictures  torn  to  rags  by  bomb- 
shells. And  after  such  a  sight,  it  is  not  every  lecturer  who 
would  tell  you  that,  nevertheless,  war  was  the  foundation 
of  all  great  art. 

Yet  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  from  any  careful  compari- 
son of  the  states  of  great  historic  races  at  different  periods. 
Merely  to  show  you  what  I  mean,  I  will  sketch  for  you, 
very  briefly,  the  broad  steps  of  the  advance  of  the  best  art 
of  the  world.  The  first  dawn  of  it  is  in  Egypt ;  and  the 
power  of  it  is  founded  on  the  perpetual  contemplation  o* 
death,  and  of  future  judgment,  by  the  mind  of  a  nation  of 
which  the  ruling  caste  were  priests,  and  the  second,  soldiers 
The  greatest  works  produced  by  them  are  sculptures  of 
their  kings  going  out  to  battle,  or  receiving  the  homage  of 
conquered  armies.    And   you  must  remember   also,  as  one 


86  THE  CROWN    OP   WILD   OLIVE. 

of  the  great  keys  to  the  splendour  of  the  Egyptian  nation, 
that  the  priests  were  not  occupied  in  theology  only.     Their 
theology  was  the   basis  of  practical   government  and   law 
so  that  they  were  not  so  much  priests  as  religious  judges 
the  office  of  Samuel,  among  the  Jews,  being   as  nearly  as 
possible  correspondent  to  theirs. 

All  the  rudiments  of  art  then,  and  much  more  than  the 
rudiments  of  all  science,  are  laid  first  by  this  great  warrior- 
nation,  which  held  in  contempt  all  mechanical  trades,  and 
in  absolute  hatred  the  peaceful  life  of  shepherds.  From 
Egypt  art  passes  directly  into  Greece,  where  all  poetry,  and 
all  painting,  are  nothing  else  than  the  description,  praise,  or 
dramatic  representation  of  war,  or  of  the  exercises  which 
prepare  for  it,  in  their  connection  with  offices  of  religion. 
All  Greek  institutions  had  first  respect  to  war;  and  their 
conception  of  it,  as  one  necessary  office  of  all  human  and 
divine  life,  is  expressed  simply  by  the  images  of  their 
guiding  gods.  Apollo  is  the  god  of  all  wisdom  of  the  intel- 
lect ;  he  bears  the  arrow  and  the  bow,  before  he  bears  the 
lyre.  Again,  Athena  is  the  goddess  ot  all  wisdom  in  conduct. 
It  is  by  the  helmet  and  the  shield,  oftener  than  by  the  shuttle, 
that  she  is  distinguished  from  other  deities. 

There  were,  however,  two  great  differences  in  principle 
between  the  Greek  and  the  Egyptian  theories  of  policy. 
In   Greece   there  was  no  soldier   caste ;   every   citizen   was 


WAB.  87 

necessarily  a  soldier.  And,  again,  while  the  Greeks  rightly 
despised  mechanical  arts  as  much  as  the  Egyptians,  they  did 
not  make  the  fatal  mistake  of  despising  agricultural  and  pas 
toral  life  ;  but  perfectly  honoured  both.  These  two  conditions 
of  truer  thought  raise  them  quite  into  the  highest  rank  of  wise 
manhood  that  has  yet  been  reached ;  for  all  our  great  arts, 
and  nearly  all  our  great  thoughts,  have  been  borrowed  or 
derived  from  them.  Take  away  from  us  what  they  have 
given ;  and  I  hardly  can  imagine  how  low  the  modern 
European  would  stand. 

Now,  you  are  to  remember,  in  passing  to  the  next  phase 
of  history,  that  though  you  must  have  war  to  produce  art — 
you  must  also  have  much  more  than  war ;  namely,  an  art- 
instinct  or  genius  in  the  people ;  and  that,  though  all  the 
talent  for  painting  in  the  world  won't  make  painters  of  you, 
unless  you  have  a  gift  for  fighting  as  well,  you  may  have  the 
gift  for  fighting,  and  none  for  painting.  Now,  in  the  next 
great  dynasty  of  soldiers,  the  art-instinct  is  wholly  wanting. 
I  have  not  yet  investigated  the  Roman  character  enough  tc 
tell  you  the  causes  of  this ;  but  I  believe,  paradoxical  as  it 
may  seem  to  you,  that,  however  truly  the  Roman  might  say 
of  himself  that  he  was  born  of  Mars,  and  suckled  by  the 
wolf,  he  was  nevertheless,  at  heart,  more  of  a  farmer  thau  a 
soldier.  The  exercises  of  war  were  with  him  practical,  not 
poetical ;  his  poetry  was  in  domestic  life  only,  and  the  object 


88  THE   CBOWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

of  battle,  '  pacis  imponere  morem.'  And  the  arts  are  extin 
guished  in  his  hands,  and  do  not  rise  again,  until,  with 
Gothic  chivalry,  there  comes  back  into  the  mind  of  Europe  a 
passionate  delight  in  war  itself,  for  the  sake  of  war.  And 
then,  with  the  romantic  knighthood  which  can  imagine  no 
other  noble,  employment, — under  the  fighting  kings  of 
France,  Bhgland,  and  Spain  ;  and  under  the  fighting  dukeships 
and  citizenships  of  Italy,  art  is  born  again,  and  rises  to  her 
height  in  the  great  valleys  of  Lombardy  and  Tuscany,  through 
which  there  flows  not  a  single  stream,  from  all  their  Alps  or 
Apennines,  that  did  not  once  run  dark  red  from  battle :  and  it 
reaches  its  culminating  glory  in  the  city  which  gave  to  history 
the  most  intense  type  of  soldiership  yet  seen  among  men  ; — the 
city  whose  armies  were  led  in  their  assault  by  their  king,  led 
through  it  to  victory  by  their  king,  and  so  led,  though  that 
king  of  theirs  was  blind,  and  in  the  extremity  of  his  age. 

And  from  this  time  forward,  as  peace  is  established  or 
extended  in  Europe,  the  arts  decline.  They  reach  an 
unparalleled  pitch  of  costliness,  but  lose  their  life,  enlist 
themselves  at  last  on  the  side  of  luxury  and  various  corrup- 
tion, and,  among  wholly  tranquil  nations,  wither  utterly 
away ;  remaining  only  in  partial  practice  among  races  who, 
like  the  French  and  us,  have  still  the  minds,  though  we  can- 
not all  live  the  lives,  of  soldiers. 

'  It  may  be  so,'  I  can  suppose  that  a  philanthropist  might 


WAK.  89 

exclaim.  '  Perish  then  the  arts,  if  they  can  flourish  only  at  such 
a  cost.  What  worth  is  there  in  toys  of  canvas  and  stone,  if 
compared  to  the  joy  and  peace  of  artless  domestic  life  ?  '  And 
the  answer  is — truly,  in  themselves,  none.  But  as  expressions 
of  the  highest  state  of  the  human  spirit,  their  worth  is  infinite. 
As  results  they  may  be  worthless,  but,  as  signs,  they  are 
above  price.  For  it  is  an  assured  truth  that,  whenever  the 
faculties  of  men  are  at  their  fulness,  they  must  express  them- 
selves by  art ;  and  to  say  that  a  state  is  without  such  expres- 
sion, is  to  say  that  it  is  sunk  from  its  proper  level  of  manly 
nature.  So  that,  when  I  tell  you  that  war  is  the  foundation 
of  all  the  arts,  I  mean  also  that  it  is*  the  foundation  of  all  the 
high  virtues  and  faculties  of  men. 

It  was  very  strange  to  me  to  discover  this ;  and  very  dread- 
ful— but  I  saw  it  to  be  quite  an  undeniable  fact.  The  com- 
mon notion  that  peace  and  the  virtues  of  civil  life  flourished 
together,  I  found,  to  be  wholly  untenable.  Peace  and  the 
vices  of  civil  life  only  flourish  together.  We  talk  of  peace 
and  learning,  and  of  peace  and  plenty,  and  of  peace  and  civili- 
sation ;  but  I  found  that  those  were  not  the  words  which  the 
Muse  of  History  coupled  together  :  that  on  her  lips,  the  words 
were — peace  and  sensuality,  peace  and  selfishness,  peace  and 
corruption,  peace  and  death.  I  found,  in  brief,  that  all  great 
nations  learned  their  truth  of  word,  and  strength  of  thought,  in 
war ;  that  they  were  nourished  in  war,  and  wasted  by  peace; 


90  THE   CROWN    OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

taught  by  war,  and  deceived  by  peace  ;  trained  by  war,  and 
betrayed  by  peace  ; — in  a  word,  that  they  were  born  in  war 
and  expired  in  peace. 

Yet  now  note  carefully,  in  the  second  place,  it  is  not  all  wat 
of  which  this  can  be  said — nor  all  dragon's  teeth,  which, 
sown,  will  start  up  into  men.  It  is  not  the  ravage  of  a  bar- 
barian wolf-flock,  as  under  Genseiic  or  Suwarrow  ;  nor  the 
habitual  restlessness  and  rapine  of  mountaineers,  as  on  the 
old  borders  of  Scotland  ;  nor  the  occasional  struggle  of  a 
strong  peaceful  nation  for  its  life,  as  in  the  wars  of  the  Swiss 
with  Austria ;  nor  tbe  contest  of  merely  ambitious  nations 
for  extent  of  power,  as  in  the  wars  of  France  under  Napoleon, 
or  the  just  terminated  war  in  America.  None  of  these  forms 
of  war  build  anything  but  tombs.  But  the  creative  or  foun- 
dational war  is  that  in  which  the  natural  restlessness  and  love 
of  contest  among  men  are  disciplined,  by  consent,  into  modes 
of  beautiful — though  it  may  be  fatal — play :  in  which  the  na- 
tural ambition  and  love  of  power  of  men  are  disciplined  into 
the  aggressive  conquest  of  surrounding  evil :  and  in  which  the 
natural  instincts  of  self-defence  are  sanctified  by  the  nobleness 
»f  the  institutions,  and  purity  of  the  households,  which  they 
are  appointed  to  defend.  To  such  war  as  this  all  men  are  born  ; 
in  such  war  as  this  any  man  may  happily  die  ;  and  forth  from 
Buch  war  as  this  have  arisen  throughout  the  extent  of  past 
ages,  all  the  highest  sanctities  and  virtues  of  humanity 


WAR.  91 

1  shall  therefore  divide  the  war  of  which  I  would  speak  tc 
you  into  three  heads.  War  for  exercise  or  play;  war  foi 
dominion  ;  and,  war  for  defence. 

I.  And  first,  of  war  for  exercise  or  play.  I  speak  of  it  pri 
marily  in  this  light,  because,  through  all  past  history,  manly 
war  has  been  more  an  exercise  than  anything  else,  among  the 
classes  who  cause,  and  proclaim  it.  It  is  not  a  game  to  the 
conscript,  or  the  pressed  sailor;  but  neither  of  these  are  the 
causers  of  it.  To  the  governor  who  determines  that  war 
shall  be,  and  to  the  youths  who  voluntarily  adopt  it  as  their 
profession,  it  has  always  been  a  grand  pastime ;  and  chiefly 
pursued  because  they  had  nothing  else  to  do.  And  this  is 
true  without  any  exception.  No  king  whose  mind  was  fully 
occupied  with  the  development  of  the  inner  resources  of  his 
kingdom,  or  with  any  other  sufficing  subject  of  thought,  ever 
entered  into  war  but  on  compulsion.  No  youth  who  was 
earnestly  busy  with  any  peaceful  subject  of  study,  or  set  on 
any  serviceable  course  of  action,  ever  voluntarily  became  a 
soldier.  Occupy  him  early,  and  wisely,  in  agriculture  or  busi- 
ness, in  science  or  in  literature,  and  he  will  never  think  of  war 
otherwise  than  as  a  calamity.  But  leave  him  idle ;  and,  the 
more  brave  and  active  and  capable  he  is  by  nature,  the  more 
he  will  thirst  for  some  appointed  field  for  action  ;  and  find,  in 
the  passion  and  peril  of  battle,  the  only  satisfying  fulfilment 
of  his  unoccupied  being.     And  from  the  earliest  incipient  civil 


92  THE   CROWN   OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

isation  until  now,  the  population  of  the  earth  divides  itstii 
when  you  look  at  it  widely,  into  two  races  ;  one  of  workers, 
and  the  other  of  players— one  tilling  the  ground,  manufactur 
ing,  building,  and  otherwise  providing  for  the  necessities  of 
_ife  ; — the  other  part  proudly  idle,  and  continually  therefore 
needing  recreation,  in  which  they  use  the  productive  and 
laborious  orders  partly  as  their  cattle,  and  partly  as  their 
puppets  or  pieces  in  the  game  of  death. 

Now,  remember,  whatever  virtue  or  goodliness  there  may 
be  in  this  game  of  war,  rightly  played,  there  is  none  when 
you  thus  play  it  with  a  multitude  of  small  human  pawns. 

If  you,  the  gentlemen  of  this  or  any  other  kingdom, 
choose  to  make  your  pastime  of  contest,  do  so,  and  welcome  ; 
but  set  not  up  these  unhappy  peasant-pieces  upon  the  green 
fielded  board.  If  the  wager  is  to  be  of  death,  lay  it  on  your 
own  heads,  not  theirs.  A  goodly  struggle  in  the  Olympic 
dust,  though  it  be  the  dust  of  the  grave,  the  gods  will  look 
upon,  and  be  with  you  in ;  but  they  wrill  not  be  with  you,  if 
you  sit  on  the  sides  of  the  amphitheatre,  whose  steps  are 
the  mountains  of  earth,  whose  arena  its  valleys,  to  urge  your 
peasant  millions  into  gladiatorial  war.  You  also,  you  tender 
and  delicate  women,  for  whom,  and  by  whose  command,  all 
true  battle  has  been,  and  must  ever  be ;  you  would  perhaps 
shrink  now,  though  you  need  not,  from  the  thought  of 
sitting  as  queens  above  set  lists  where  the  jousting  gam« 


WAB.  93 

might  be  mortal.  How  much  more,  then,  ought  you  tfj 
shrink  from  the  thought  of  sitting  above  a  theatre  p.t  in 
which  even  a  few  condemned  slaves  were  slaying  each  other 
only  for  your  delight  I  And  do  you  not  shrink  from  the  fad 
of  sitting  above  a  theatre  pit,  where, —  not  condemned  slaves, 
— but  the  best  and  bravest  of  the  poor  sons  of  your  people, 
slay  each  other, — not  man  to  man, — as  the  coupled  gladia- 
tors ;  but  race  to  race,  in  duel  of  generations  ?  You  would 
tell  me,  perhaps,  that  you  do  not  sit  to  see  this ;  and  it  is 
indeed  true,  that  the  women  of  Europe — those  who  have  no 
heart-interest  of  their  own  at  peril  in  the  contest — draw  the 
curtains  of  their  boxes,  and  muffle  the  openings;  so  that 
from  the  pit  of  the  circus  of  slaughter  there  may  reach  them 
only  at  intervals  a  half-heard  cry  and  a  murmur  as  of  the 
wind's  sighing,  when  myriads  of  souls  expire.  They  shut 
out  the  death-cries ;  and  are  happy,  and  talk  wittily  among 
themselves.  That  is  the  utter  literal  fact  of  what  our  ladiea 
do  in  their  pleasant  lives. 

Nay,  you  might  answer,  speaking  for  them — 'We  do  not 
let  these  wars  come  to  pass  for  our  play>  nor  by  our  careless- 
ness; we  cannot  help  them.  How  can  any  final  quarrel  of 
nations  be  settled  otherwise  than  by  war  ? '  I  cannot  now 
delay,  to  tell  you  how  political  quarrels  might  be  otherwise 
settled.  But  grant  that  they  cannot.  Grant  that  no  law  of 
reason  can  be  understood  by  nations;  no  law  of  justice  sub 


94  THE   CROWN   Of   WILD   OLIVB. 

mitted  to  by  them:  and  that,  while  questions  of  a  few  acres, 
and  of  petty  cash,  can  be  determined  by  truth  and  equity, 
the  questions  which  are  to  issue  in  the  perishing  or  saving  of 
kingdoms  can  be  determined  only  by  the  truth  of  the  sword, 
and  the  equity  of  the  rifle.  Grant  this,  and  even  then,  judge 
if  it  will  always  be  necessary  for  you  to  put  your  quarrel  into 
the  hearts  of  your  poor,  and  sign  your  treaties  with  peasants' 
blood.  You  would  be  ashamed  to  do  this  in  your  own 
private  position  and  power.  Why  should  you  not  be  ashamed 
also  to  do  it  in  public  place  and  power  ?  If  you  quarrel  with 
your  neighbour,  and  the  quarrel  be  indeterminable  by  law, 
and  mortal,  you  and  he  do  not  send  your  footmen  to  Batter- 
sea  fields  to  fight  it  out ;  nor  do  you  set  fire  to  his  tenants' 
cottages,  nor  spoil  their  goods.  You  fight  out  your  quarrel 
yourselves,  and  at  your  own  danger,  if  at  all.  And  you  do 
not  think  it  materially  affects  the  arbitrement  that  one  of  you 
has  a  larger  household  than  the  other;  so  that,  if  the  servants 
or  tenants  were  brought  into  the  field  with  their  masters,  the 
issue  of  the  contest  could  not  be  doubtful?  You  either 
refuse  the  private  duel,  or  you  practise  it  under  laws  of 
honour,  not  of  physical  force;  that  so  it  may  be,  in  a  manner, 
justly  concluded.  Now  the  just  or  unjust  conclusion  of  tha 
private  feud  is  of  little  moment,  while  the  just  or  unjust  conclu- 
sion of  the  public  feud  is  of  eternal  moment :  and  yet,  in  this 
public  quarrel,  you  take  your  servants'  sons  from  their  arms 


wak.  y5 

to  fight  for  it,  and  your  servants'  food  from  their  lips  to  sup 
port  it ;  and  the  black  seals  on  the  parchment  of  your  treaties 
of  peace  are  the  deserted  hearth  and  the  fruitless  field. 
There  is  a  ghastly  ludicrousness  in  this,  as  there  is  mostly  in 
these  wide  and  universal  crimes.  Hear  the  statement  of  the 
very  fact  of  it  in  the  most  literal  words  of  the  greatest  of  oul 
English  thinkers : — 

'  What,  speaking  in  quite  unofficial  language,  is  the  net-purport  and 
upshot  of  war  ?  To  my  own  knowledge,  for  example,  there  dwell 
and  toil,  in  the  British  village  of  Dumdrudge,  usually  some  five  hun- 
dred souls.  From  these,  by  certain  "natural  enemies"  of  the  French, 
there  are  successively  selected,  during  the  French  war,  say  thirty  able* 
bodied  men.  Dumdrudge,  at  her  own  expense,  has  suckled  and 
nursed  them ;  she  has,  not  without  difficulty  and  sorrow,  fed  them  up 
to  manhood,  and  even  trained  them  to  crafts,  so  that  one  can  weave, 
another  build,  another  hammer,  and  the  weakest  can  stand  under 
thirty  stone  avoirdupois.  Nevertheless,  amid  much  weeping  and 
swearing,  they  are  selected ;  all  dressed  in  red ;  and  shipped  away,  at 
the  public  charges,  some  two  thousand  miles,  or  say  only  to  the  south 
of  Spain ;  and  fed  there  till  wanted. 

'  And  now  to  that  same  spot  in  the  south  of  Spain  are  thirty  similar 
French  artisans,  from  a  French  Dumdrudge,  in  like  manner  wending ; 
till  at  length,  after  infinite  effort,  the  two  parties  come  into  actual 
juxtaposition;  and  Thirty  stands  fronting  Thirty,  each  with  a  gun  iD 
nig  hand. 

'Straightway  the  word  "Fire I  "  is  given,  and  they  blow  the  souli 


96  THE    CROWN    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

out  of  one  another,  and  in  place  of  sixty  brisk  useful  craftsmen,  the 
world  has  sixty  dead  carcases,  which  it  must  bury,  and  anon  shed 
tears  for.  Had  these  men  any  quarrel  ?  Busy  as  the  devil  is,  not  the 
Smallest!  They  lived  far  enough  apart ;  were  the  entirest  strangers; 
nay,  in  so  wide  a  universe,  there  was  even,  unconsciously,  by  com- 
merce, some  mutual  helpfulness  between  them.  How  then?  Sim- 
pleton! their  governors  had  fallen  out;  and  instead  of  shooting  one 
another,  had  the  cunning  to  make  these  poor  blockheads  shoot.' 
(Sartor  Resartus.) 

Positively,  then,  gentlemen,  the  game  of  battle  must  not, 
and  shall  not,  ultimately  be  played  this  way.  But  should  it 
be  played  any  way?  Should  it,  if  not  by  your  servants,  be 
practised  by  yourselves?  I  think,  yes.  Both  history  and 
human  instinct  seem  alike  to  say,  yes.  All  healthy  men  like 
fighting,  and  like  the  sense  of  danger ;  all  brave  women  like 
to  hear  of  their  fighting,  and  of  their  fiiciug  danger.  This  is 
a  fixed  instinct  in  the  fine  race  of  them ;  and  I  cannot  help 
fancying  that  fair  fight  is  the  best  play  for  them ;  and  that  a 
tournament  was  a  better  game  than  a  steeple-chase.  The 
time  may  perhaps  come  in  France  as  well  as  here,  for  univer- 
sal hurdle-races  and  cricketing :  but  I  do  not  think  universal 
4  crickets '  will  bring  out  the  best  qualities  of  the  nobles  of 
either  country.  I  use,  in  such  question,  the  test  which  I  have 
adopted,  of  the  connection  of  war  with  other  arts ;  and  I 
reflect  how,  as  a  sculptor,  I  should  feel,  if  I  were  asked  to 


•was..  91 

design  a  monument  for  a  dead  knight,  in  Westminster  abbey, 
with  a  carving  of  a  bat  at  one  end,  and  a  ball  at  the  other. 
It  may  be  the  remains  in  me  only  of  savage  Gothic  prejudice; 
but  I  had  rather  carve  it  with  a  shield  at  one  end,  and  a 
sword  at  the  other.  And  this,  observe,  with  no  reference 
whatever  to  any  story  of  duty  done,  or  cause  defended. 
Assume  the  knight  merely  to  have  ridden  out  occasionally  to 
fight  his  neighbour  for  exercise ;  assume  him  even  a  soldier 
of  fortune,  and  to  have  gained  his  bread,  and  filled  his  purse, 
at  the  sword's  point.  Still,  I  feel  as  if  it  were,  somehow, 
grander  and  worthier  in  him  to  have  made  his  bread  by 
sword  play  than  any  other  play ;  I  had  rather  he  had  made  it 
by  thrusting  than  by  batting; — much  more,  than  by  betting. 
Much  rather  that  he  should  ride  war  horses,  than  back  race 
horses;  and — I  say  it  sternly  and  deliberately — much 
rather  would  I  have  him  slay  his  neighbour,  than  cheat 
him. 

But  remember,  so  far  as  this  may  be  true,  the  game 
of  war  is  only  that  in  which  the  full  personal  power  of 
the  human  creature  is  brought  out  in  management  of  it* 
weapons.      And   this   for   three  reasons  : — 

First,  the  great  justification  of  this  game  is  that  it  truly 
when  well  played,  determines  icho  is  the  best  man  /-- 
who  is  the   highest  bred,  the   most   self-denying,  the  most 

fearless,  the  coolest  of  nerve,  the  swiftest  of  eye  and  hand. 

6 


98  THE  CB0WN   OV  WILD   OLIVE. 

You  canuot  test  these  qualities  wholly,  unless  there  is  a 
clear  possibility  of  the  struggle's  ending  in  death.  It  is 
only  in  the  fronting  of  that  condition  that  the  full  trial 
of  the  man,  soul  and  body,  conies  out.  You  may  go  to 
your  game  of  wickets,  or  of  hurdles,  or  of  cards,  and 
any  knavery  that  is  in  you  may  stay  unchallenged  all 
the  while.  But  if  the  play  may  be  ended  at  any  moment  by 
a  lance-thrust,  a  man  will  probably  make  up  his  accounts 
a  little  before  he  enters  it.  "Whatever  is  rotten  and  evil 
in  him  will  weaken  his  hand  more  in  holding  a  sword  hilt, 
than  in  balancing  a  billiard  cue ;  and  on  the  whole,  the 
habit  of  living  lightly  hearted,  in  daily  presence  of  death, 
always  has  had,  and  must  have,  a  tendency  both  to  the 
making  and  testing  of  honest  men.  But  for  the  final  test- 
ing, observe,  you  must  make  the  issue  of  battle  strictly 
dependent  on  fineness  of  xVame,  and  firmness  of  hand.  You 
must  not  make  it  the  question,  which  of  the  combatants 
has  the  longest  sun,  or  which  has  got  behind  the  biggest 
tree,  or  which  has  the  wind  in  his  face,  or  which  has  gun- 
powder made  by  the  best  chemists,  or  iron  smelted  with 
the  best  coal,  or  the  angriest  mob  at  his  back.  Decide 
your  battle,  whether  of  nations,  or  individuals,  on  those 
terms  ; — and  you  have  only  multiplied  confusion,  and  added 
slaughter  to  iniquity.  But  decide  your  battle  by  pure  trial 
which  has  the  strongest  arm,  and  steadiest  heai  t, — and  you 


WAB.  99 

hare  gone  far  to  decide  a  great  many  matters  besides,  and 
to  decide  them  rightly. 

And  the  other  reasons  for  this  mode  of  decision  of  cause, 
are  the  diminution  both  of  the  material  destructiveness; 
or  cost,  and  of  the  pnysical  distress  of  war.  For  you  must 
not  think  that  in  speaking  to  you  in  this  (as  you  may 
imagine),  fantastic  praise  of  battle,  I  have  overlooked  the 
conditions  weighing  against  me.  I  pray  all  of  you,  who 
have  not  read,  to  read  with  the  most  earnest  attention,  Mr. 
Helps's  two  essays  on  War  and  Government,  in  the  first 
volume  of  the  last  series  of '  Friends  in  Council.'  Everything 
that  can  be  urged  against  war  is  there  simply,  exhaustively, 
and  most  graphically  stated.  And  all,  there  urged,  is  true. 
But  the  two  great  counts  of  evil  alleged  against  war  by 
that  most  thoughtful  writer,  hold  only  against  modern  war. 
If  you  have  to  take  away  masses  of  men  from  all  indus- 
trial employment, — to  feed  them  by  the  labour  of  others, — > 
to  move  them  and  provide  them  with  destructive  machines, 
varied  daily  in  national  rivalship  of  inventive  cost;  if  you 
have  to  ravage  the  country  which  you  attack, — to  destroy 
for  a  score  of  future  years,  its  roads,  its  woods,  its  cities, 
and  its  harbours ; — and  if,  finally,  having  brought  massea 
of  men,  counted  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  face  to  face,  you 
tear  those  masses  to  pieces  with  jagged  shot,  and  leave  the 
fragments  of  living  creatures,  countlessly  beyond  all  help  of 


100  THE   CROWN   OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

surgery,  to  starve  and  parch,  through  clays  of  torture,  down 
Into  clots  of  clay — what  book  of  accounts  shall  record  tin 
cost  of  your  work  ; — What  book  of  judgment  sentence  the 
guilt  of  it  ? 

That,  I  say,  is  modern  war, — scientific  war, — chemical  ana 
mechanic  war,  worse  even  than  the  savage's  poisoned  arrow. 
And  yet  you  will  tell  me,  perhaps,  that  any  other  war  than  thia 
is  impossible  now.  It  may  be  so  ;  the  progress  of  science  can- 
not, perhaps,  be  otherwise  registered  than  by  new  facilities 
of  destruction ;  and  the  brotherly  love  of  our  enlarging 
Christianity  be  only  proved  by  multiplication  of  murder. 
Yet  hear,  for  a  moment,  what  war  was,  in  Pagan  and  igno- 
rant days ; — what  war  might  yet  be,  if  we  could  extinguish 
our  science  in  darkness,  and  join  the  heathen's  practice  to  the 
Christian's  theory.  I  read  you  this  from  a  book  which  proba- 
bly most  of  you  know  well,  and  all  ought  to  know — Muller's 
'  Dorians ; '  — but  I  have  put  the  points  I  wish  you  to  remem- 
ber in  closer  connection  than  in  his  text. 

'The  chief  characteristic  of  the   warriors  of  Sparta  was 

great  composure  and  subdued  strength  ;   the  violence  (XJtfrfa) 

of  Aristodemus  and  Isadas   being   considered  as  deserving 

rather  of  blame  than  praise  ;   and  these  qualities  in  general 

t 
distinguished  the  Greeks  from  the  northern  Barbarians,  whose 

boldness  always  consisted  in  noise  and  tumult.     For  the  same 

reason  the  Spartans  sacrificed  to  the  Muses  before  an  action 


WAR.  101 

these  goddesses  being  expected  to  produce  regularity  and 
order  in  battle ;  as  they  sacrificed  on  tJie  same  occasion  in 
Crete  to  the  god  of  love,  as  the  confirnier  of  mutual  esteem 
and  shame.  Every  man  put  on  a  crown,  when  the  band  of 
flute-players  gave  the  signal  for  attack  ;  all  thf  shields  of  the 
line  glittered  with  their  high  polish,  and  mingled  their 
splendour  with  the  dark  red  of  the  purple  mantles,  which 
were  meant  both  to  adorn  the  combatant,  ai«d  to  conceal  the 
blood  of  the  wounded;  to  fall  well  and  decorously  being  an 
incentive  the  more  to  the  most  heroic  valour.  The  conduct 
of  the  Spartans  in  battle  denotes  a  high  and  noble  disposition, 
which  rejected  all  the  extremes  of  brutal  rage.  The  pursuit 
of  the  enemy  ceased  when  the  victory  was  completed ;  and 
after  the  signal  for  retreat  had  been  given,  all  hostilities 
ceased.  The  spoiling  of  arms,  at  least  during  the  battle,  was 
also  interdicted ;  and  the  consecration  of  the  spoils  of  slain 
enemies  to  the  gods,  as,  in  general,  all  rejoicings  for  victory, 
were  considered  as  ill-omened.' 

Such  was  the  war  of  the  greatest  soldiers  who  prayed  to 
heathen  gods.  What  Christian  war  is,  preached  by  Chris- 
tian ministers,  let  any  one  tell  you,  who  saw  the  sacred 
crowning,  and  heard  the  sacred  flute-playing,  and  was 
inspired  and  sanctified  by  the  divinely-measured  and  musi- 
cal language,  of  any  North  American  regiment  preparing 
for  its  charge.      And   what  is  the  relative   cost  of  life  in 


102  THE   CROWN    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

pagan  and  Christian  wars,  let  this  one  fact  tell  you : — the 
Spartans  won  the  decisive  battle  of  Corinth  with  the  loss 
of  eight  men ;  the  victors  at  indecisive  Gettysburg  conies?, 
to  the  loss  of  30,000. 

II.  I  pass  now  to  our  second  order  of  war,  the  commonest 
among  men,  that  undertaken  in  desire  of  dominion.  And 
let  me  ask  you  to  think  for  a  few  moments  what  the  real 
meaning  of  this  desire  of  dominion  is — first  in  the  minds  of 
kings — then  in  that  of  nations. 

Now,  mind  you  this  first, — that  I  speak  either  about  kings, 
or  masses  of  men,  with  a  fixed  conviction  that  human  nature 
is  a  noble  and  beautiful  thing ;  not  a  foul  nor  a  base  thing. 
All  the  sin  of  men  I  esteem  as  their  disease,  not  their  nature ; 
as  a  folly  which  may  be  prevented,  not  a  necessity  which 
must  be  accepted.  And  my  wonder,  even  when  things  are 
at  their  worst,  is  always  at  the  height  which  this  human 
nature  can  attain.  Thinking  it  high,  I  find  it  always  a  higher 
thing  than  I  thought  it ;  while  those  who  think  it  low,  find 
it,  and  will  find  it,  always  lower  than  they  thought  it :  the 
fact  being,  that  it  is  infinite,  and  capable  of  infinite  height 
and  infinite  fall ;  but  the  nature  of  it — and  here  is  the  faith 
which  I  would  have  you  hold  with  me — the  nature  of  it  is  in 
the  nobleness,  not  in  the  catastrophe. 

Take  the  faith  in  its  utmost  terms.  When  the  captain  of 
the  'London'  shook  hands  with  his  mate,  saying  'God  speed 


WAR.  103 

/■oa!  I  will  go  down  with  my  passengers,'  that  I  believe  tc 
be  '  human  nature.'  He  does  not  do  it  from  any  religious 
motive — from  any  hope  of  reward,  or  any  fear  of*punish 
ment ;  bo  does  it  because  be  is  a  man.  But  when  a  mothert 
living  among  the  fair  fields  of  merry  England,  gives  hei 
two-year-old  child  to  be  suffocated  under  a  mattress  in  hei 
inner  room,  while  the  said  mother  waits  and  talks  outside : 
that  I  believe  to  be  not  human  nature.  You  have  the  two 
extremes  there,  shortly.  And  you,  men,  and  mothers,  who 
are  here  face  to  face  with  me  to-night,  I  call  upon  you  to  say 
which  of  these  is  human,  and  which  inhuman — which  '  natu- 
ral'  and  which 'unnatural?  '  Choose  your  creed  at  once,  I 
beseech  you : — choose  it  with  unshaken  choice — choose  it  for 
ever.  Will  you  take,  for  foundation  of  act  and  hope,  the 
faith  that  this  man  was  such  as  God  made  him,  or  that  this 
woman  was  such  as  God  made  her  ?  Which  of  them  has 
failed  from  their  nature — from  their  present,  possible,  actual 
natiAe ;  —not  their  nature  of  long  ago,  but  their  nature  of 
now?  Which  has  betrayed  it — falsified  it?  Did  the  guar- 
dian who  died  in  his  trust,  die  inhumanly,  and  as  a  fool;  and 
did  the  murderess  of  her  child  fulfil  the  law  of  her  being? 
Choose,  I  say;  infinitude  of  choices  hang  upon  this.  You 
have  had  false  prophets  among  you — for  centuries  you  have 
had  them — solemnly  warned  against  them  though  you  were; 
false  prophets,  who  have  told  you  that  all  men  are  nothing 


104  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

but  fiends  or  wolves,  half  beast,  half  devil  Believe  that 
and  indeed  you  may  sink  to  that.  But  refuse  that,  and  have 
faith  that  God  'made  you  upright,'  though  you  have  sought 
out  many  inventions ;  so,  you  will  strive  daily  to  become 
more  what  your  Maker  meant  and  means  you  to  be,  and 
daily  gives  you  also  the  power  to  be — and  you  will  cling 
more  and  more  to  the  nobleness  and  virtue  that  is  in  you, 
saying,  '  My  righteousness  I  hold  fast,  and  will  not  let  it  go.' 

I  have  put  this  to  you  as  a  choice,  as  if  you  might  hold 
either  of  these  creeds  you  liked  best.  But  there  is  in  reality 
no  choice  for  you ;  the  facts  being  quite  easily  ascertainable. 
You  have  no  business  to  think  about  this  matter,  or  to  choose 
in  it.  The  broad  fact  is,  that  a  human  creature  of  the  highest 
race,  and  most  perfect  as  a  human  thing,  is  invariably  both 
kind  and  true ;  and  that  as  you  lower  the  race,  you  get 
cruelty  and  falseness,  as  you  get  deformity :  and  this  so 
steadily  and  assuredly,  that  the  two  great  words  which,  in 
their  first  use,  meant  only  perfection  of  race,  have  come,  by 
consequence  of  the  invariable  connection  of  virtue  with  the 
fine  human  nature,  both  to  signify  benevolence  of  disposition. 
The  word  generous,  and  the  word  gentle,  both,  in  their  origin, 
meant  only  '  of  pure  race,'  but  because  charity  and  tenderness 
are  inseparable  from  this  purity  of  blood,  the  words  which 
once  stood  only  for  pride,  now  stand  as  synonyms  for  virtue. 

Now,  this  being  the  true  power  of  our  inherent  humanity, 


WAK.  105 

and  seeing  that  all  the  aim  of  education  should  be  to  develop 
this; — aud  seeing  also  what  magnificent  self  sacrifice  the 
higher  classes  of  men  are  capable  of,  for  any  cause  that  they 
understand  or  feel, — it  is  wholly  inconceivable  to  me  how 
well-educated  princes,  who  ought  to  be  of  all  gentle  nen  the 
gentlest,  and  of  all  nobles  the  most  generous,  and  whose  title 
01  royalty  means  only  their  function  of  doing  every  man 
'■right'' — how  these,  I  say,  throughout  history,  should  so 
rarely  pronounce  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  poor  and  of 
justice,  but  continually  maintain  themselves  and  their  own 
interests  by  oppression  of  the  poor,  and  by  wresting  of  justice ; 
and  how  this  should  be  accepted  as  so  natural,  that  the  word 
loyalty,  which  means  faithfulness  to  law,  is  used  as  if  it  were 
only  the  duty  of  a  people  to  be  loyal  to  their  king,  and  not 
the  duty  of  a  king  to  be  infinitely  more  loyal  to  his  people. 
How  comes  it  to  pass  that  a  captain  will  die  with  his  pass- 
engers, and  lean  over  the  gunwale  to  give  the  parting  boat  its 
course;  but  that  a  king  will  not  usually  die  with,  much  less 
for,  his  passengers, — thinks  it  rather  incumbent  on  his  pas- 
sengers, in  any  number,  to  die  for  him?  Think,  I  beseech 
you,  of  the  wonder  of  this.  The  sea  captain,  not  captain  by 
divine  right,  but  only  by  company's  appointment ; — not  a 
man  of  royal  descent,  but  only  a  plebeian  who  can  steer ; — 
not  with  the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  him,  but  with   feeble 

-mance,  depending  on  one  poor  boat,  of  his  name  being  evei 

5* 


106  THE    CltOWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

heard  above  the  wash  of  the  fatal  waves  ; — not  with  the  cans* 
of  a  nation  resting  on  his  act,  but  helpless  to  save  so  much  as 
a  child  from  among  the  lost  crowd  with  whom  he  resolves  to 
be  lost, — yet  goes  down  quietly  to  his  grave,  rather  than 
break  his  faith  to  these  few  emigrants.  But  your  captain  by 
divine  light, — your  captain  with  the  hues  of  a  hundred  shields 
of  kings  upon  his  breast, — your  captain  whose  every  deed, 
brave  or  base,  will  be  illuminated  or  branded  for  ever  before 
unescapable  eyes  of  men, — your  captain  whose  every  thought 
and  act  are  beneficent,  or  fatal,  from  sunrising  to  setting, 
blessing  as  the  sunshine,  or  shadowing  as  the  night, — this 
captain,  as  you  find  him  in  history,  for  the  most  part  thinks 
only  how  he  may  tax  his  passengers,  and  sit  at  most  ease  in 
his  state  cabin ! 

For  observe,  if  there  had  been  indeed  in  the  hearts  of  the 
rulers  of  great  multitudes  of  -men  any  such  conception  of 
work  for  the  good  of  those  under  their  command,  as  there  is 
in  the  good  and  thoughtful  masters  of  any  small  company  of 
men,  not  only  wars  for  the  sake  of  mere  increase  of  power 
could  never  take  place,  but  our  idea  of  power  itself  would  be 
entirely  altered.  Do  you  suppose  that  to  think  and  act  even 
for  a  million  of  men,  to  hear  their  complaints,  watch  their 
weaknesses,  restrain  their  vices,  make  laws  for  them,  lead 
them,  day  by  day,  to  purer  life,  is  not  enough  for  one  man's 
work  ?     If  any  of  us  were  absolute  lord  only  of  a  district  of 


WAR.  107 

a-  hundred  miles  square,  and  were  resolved  on  doing  oui  ut 
most  for  it ;  making  it  feed  as  large  a  number  of  people  as 
possible;  making  every  clod  productive,  and  every  rock 
defensive,  and  every  human  being  happy ;  should  we  not 
have  enough  on  our  hands  think  you  ?  But  if  the  ruler  has 
any  other  aim  than  this  ;  if,  careless  of  the  result  of  his  inter- 
ference, he  desire  only  the  authority  to  interfere  ;  and,  re- 
gardless of  what  is  ill  done  or  well-done,  cares  only  that  it 
shall  be  done  at  his  bidding; — if  he  would  rather  do  two  hun- 
dred miles'  space  of  mischief,  than  one  hundred  miles'  space  oi 
good,  of  course  he  will  try  to  add  to  his  territory  ;  and  to  add 
inimitably.  But  does  he  add  to  his  power?  Do  you  call  it 
power  in  a  child,  if  he  is  allowed  to  play  with  the  wheels  and 
bands  of  some  vast  engine,  pleased  with  their  murmur  and 
whirl,  till  his  unwise  touch,  wandering  where  it  ought  not, 
scatters  beam  and  wheel  into  ruin  ?  Yet  what  machine  is  so 
vast,  so  incognisable,  as  the  working  of  the  mind  of  a  nation  ; 
what  child's  touch  so  wanton,  as  the  word  of  a  selfish  king  ? 
And  yet,  how  long  have  we  allowed  the  historian  to  speak  of 
the  extent  of  the  calamity  a  man  causes,  as  a  just  ground  for 
his  pride;  and  to  extol  him  as  the  greatest  prince,  who  i.^ 
only  the  centre  of  the  widest  error.  Follow  out  this  thought 
by  yourselves ;  and  you  will  find  that  all  power,  properly  so 
called,  is  wise  and  benevolent.  There  may  be  capacity  in  a 
drifting   fire  ship  to   destroy  a  fleet ;  there   may   be   venom 


108  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

enough  in  a  dead  body  to  infect  a  nation  : — but  v\  hich  of  you, 
the  most  ambitious,  would  desire  a  drifting  kinghood,  robed 
in  consuming  fire,  or  a  poison-dipped  sceptre  whose  touch 
was  mortal?  There  is  no  true  potency,  remember,  but  thai 
of  help ;  nor  true  ambition,  but  ambition  to  save. 

And  then,  observe  farther,  this  true  power,  the  power 
of  saving,  depends  neither  on  multitude  of  men,  nor  on 
extent  of  territory.  We  are  continually  assuming  that  nations 
become  strong  according  to  their  numbers.  They  indeed 
become  so,  if  those  numbers  can  be  made  of  one  mind ;  but 
how  are  you  sure  you  can  stay  them  in  one  mind,  and  keep 
them  from  having  north  and  south  minds  ?  Grant  them 
unanimous,  how  know  you  they  will  be  unanimous  in  right? 
If  they  are  unanimous  in  wrong,  the  more  they  are,  essen- 
tially the  weaker  they  are.  Or,  suppose  that  they  can  neither 
be  of  one  mind,  nor  of  two  minds,  but  can  only  be  of  no 
mind  ?  Suppose  they  are  a  mere  helpless  mob ;  tottering 
into  precipitant  catastrophe,  like  a  waggon  load  of  stones 
when  the  wheel  comes  off.  Dangerous  enough  for  their 
neighbours,  certainly,  but  not  'powerful.' 

Neither  does  strength  depend  on  extent  of  territory,  any 
more  than  upon  number  of  population.  Take  up  your  mapa 
when  you  go  home  this  evening, — put  the  cluster  of  British 
Isles  beside  the  mass  of  South  America  ;  and  then  consider 
whether  any  race  of  men  need  care  how  much  ground  thej 


WAR.  109 

stand  upon.  The  strength  is  in  the  men,  and  in  their  unity 
and  virtue,  not  in  their  standing  room :  a  little  group  of  wise 
hearts  is  hetter  than  a  wilderness  full  of  fools ;  and  only  that 
cation  gains  true  territory,  which  gains  itself. 

And  now  for  the  brief  practical  outcome  of  all  this.     Re 
member,  no  government  is  ultimately  strong,  but  in  propor- 
tion to  its  kindness  and  justice  ;  and  that  a  nation  does  not 
strengthen,  by  merely  multiplying  and  diffusing  itself.     We 
have  not  strengthened  as  yet,  by  multiplying  into  America. 
Nay,  even  when  it  has  not  to  encounter  the  separating  con- 
ditions of  emigration,  a  nation  need  not  boast  itself  of  mult* 
plying  on  its  own  ground,  if  it  multiplies  only  as  flies  or  locusts 
do,  with  the  god  of  flies  for  its  god.    It  multiplies  its  strength 
only  by  increasing  as  one  great  f  imily,  in  perfect  fellowship 
and  brotherhood.     And  lastly,  it  does  not  strengthen  itself 
by   seizing   dominion    over    races   whom   it   cannot   benefit. 
Austria  is  not  strengthened,  but  weakened,  by  her  grasp  of 
Lombardy ;  and  whatever  apparent  increase  of  majesty  and 
of  wealth  may  have  accrued   to  us  from  the  possession  of 
India,  whether  these  prove  to  us  ultimately  power  or  weak- 
ness, depends  wholly  on  the  degree  in  which  our  influence  on 
the  native  race  shall  be  benevolent  and  exalting.     But,  as  it 
.8  at  their  own  peril  that  any  race  extends  their  dominion  in 
mere  desire  of  power,  so  it  is  at  their  own  still  greater  peril 
that  they  refuse  to  undertake  aggressive  war,  according  tc 


110  THE   CKOWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

their  force,  whenever  they  are  assured  that  their  authority 
would  be  helpful  and  protective.  Nor  need  you  listen  to  any 
sophistical  objection  of  the  impossibility  of  knowing  when  a 
people's  help  is  needed,  or  when  not.  Make  your  national 
conscience  clean,  and  your  national  eyes  will  soon  be  clear. 
No  man  who  is  truly  ready  to  take  part  in  a  noble  quarrel 
will  ever  stand  long  in  doubt  by  whom,  or  in  what  cause,  hi;- 
aid  is  needed.  I  hold  it  my  duty  to  make  no  political  state- 
ment of  any  special  bearing  in  this  presence  ;  but  I  tell  you 
broadly  and  boldly,  that,  within  these  last  ten  years,  we 
English  have,  as  a  knightly  nation,  lost  our  spurs:  we  have 
fought  where  we  should  not  have  fought,  for  gain  ;  and  we 
have  been  passive  where  we  should  not  have  been  passive, 
for  fear.  I  tell  you  that  the  principle  of  non-intervention,  as 
now  preached  among  us,  is  as  selHsh  and  cruel  as  the  worst 
frenzy  of  conquest,  and  differs  from  it  only  by  being  not  only 
malignant,  but  dastardly. 

I  know,  however,  that  my  opinions  on  this  subject  differ  too 
widely  from  those  ordinarily  held,  to  be  any  farther  intruded 
upon  you  ;  and  therefore  I  pass  lastly  to  examine  the  con- 
ditions of  the  third  kind  of  noble  war  ; — war  waged  simply 
for  defence  of  the  country  in  which  we  were  born,  and  for  the 
maintenance  and  execution  of  her  laws,  by  whomsoever  threat 
ened  or  defied.  It  is  to  this  duty  that  I  suppose  most  men 
entering  the  army  consider  themselves  in  reality  to  be  bound, 


WAR.  Ill 

and  I  want  you  now  to  reflect  what  the  laws  of  mere  defence 
are;  and  what  the  soldier's  duty,  as  now  understood,  or  sup 
posed  to  be  understood.  You  have  solemnly  devoted  your 
selves  to  be  English  soldiers,  for  the  guardianship  of  England, 
I  want  you  to  feel  what  this  vow  of  yours  indeed  means,  01 
is  gradually  coming  to  mean.  You  take  it  upon  you,  first, 
while  you  are  sentimental  schoolboys ;  you  go  into  your  mili- 
tary convent,  or  barracks,  just  as  a  girl  goes  into  her  convent 
while  she  is  a  sentimental  schoolgirl ;  neither  of  you  then 
know  what  you  are  about,  though  both  the  good  soldiers  and 
good  nuns  make  the  best  of  it  afterwards.  You  don't  un- 
derstand perhaps  why  I  call  you  'sentimental'  schoolboys, 
when  you  go  into  the  army  ?  Because,  on  the  whole,  it  is 
love  of  adventure,  of  excitement,  of  fine  dress  and  of  the 
pride  of  fame,  all  which  are  sentimental  motives,  which 
chiefly  make  a  boy  like  going  into  the  Guards  better  than 
into  a  counting-house.  You  fancy,  perhaps,  that  there  is  a 
severe  sense  of  duty  mixed  with  these  peacocky  motives? 
And  in  the  best  of  you,  there  is ;  but  do  not  think  that  it  is 
principal.  If  you  cared  to  do  your  duty  to  your  country  in  a 
prosaic  and  unsentimental  way,  depend  upon  it,  there  is  now 
truer  duty  to  be  done  in  raising  harvests,  than  in  burning 
them;  more  in  building  houses,  than  in  shelling  them — more 
in  winning  money  by  your  own  work,  wherewith  to  helj 
men,  than   in  taxing  other  people's  work,  for  money  where 


112  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

with  to  slay  men ;  more  duty  finally,  in  honest  and  unselfisl 
living  than  in  honest  and  unselfish  dying-,  though  that  seema 
to  your  boys'  eyes  the  bravest.  So  far  then,  as  for  your  own 
honour,  and  the  honour  of  your  families,  you  choose  brave 
death  in  a  red  coat  before  brave  life  in  a  black  one,  you  are 
sentimental ;  and  now  see  what  this  passionate  vow  of  yours 
comes  to.  For  a  little  while  you  ride,  and  you  hunt  tigers  or 
savages,  you  shoot,  and  are  shot ;  you  are  happy,  and  proud, 
always,  and  honoured  and  wept  if  you  die;  and  you  are 
satisfied  with  your  life,  and  with  the  end  of  it;  believing,  on 
the  whole,  that  good  rather  than  harm  of  it  comes  to  others, 
and  much  pleasure  to  you.  But  as  the  sense  of  duty  enters 
into  your  forming  minds,  the  vow  takes  another  aspect.  You 
find  that  you  have  put  yourselves  into  the  hand  of  youi 
country  as  a  weapon.  You  have  vowed  to  strike,  when  she 
bids  you,  and  to  stay  scabbard ed  when  she  bids  you ;  all  that 
you  need  answer  for  is,  that  you  fail  not  in  her  grasp.  And 
there  is  goodness  in  this,  and  greatness,  if  you  can  trust  the 
hand  and  heart  of  the  Britomart  who  has  braced  you  to  her 
side,  and  are  assured  that  when  she  leaves  you  sheathed  in 
darkness,  there  is  no  need  for  your  flash  to  the  sun.  But 
remember,  good  and  noble  as  this  state  may  be,  it  is  a  state 
of  slavery.  There  are  different  kinds  of  slaves  and  different 
masters.  Some  slaves  are  scourged  to  their  work  by  whips, 
others  are  scourged  to  it  by  restlessness  or  ambition.    It  do&s 


WAB.  1 13 

not  matter  what  the  whip  ;s  ;  it  is  none  the  less  a  whip,  because 
you  have  cut  thongs  for  it  out  of  your  own  souls:  tlie  fact,  so 
far,  of  slavery,  is  in  being  driven  to  your  work  without 
thought,  at  another's  bidding.  Again,  some  slaves  are  bought 
with  money,  and  others  with  praise.  It  matters  not  what  the 
purchase-money  is.  The  distinguishing  sign  of  slavery  is  to 
have  a  price,  and  be  bought  for  it.  Again,  it  matters  not 
what  kind  of  work  you  are  set  on ;  some  slaves  are  set  to 
forced  diggings,  others  to  forced  marches  ;  pome  dig  furrows, 
others  field-works,  and  others  graves.  Some  press  the  juice 
of  reeds,  and  some  the  juice  of  vines,  and  solus  the  blood  of 
men.  The  fact  of  the  captivity  is  the  same  "whatever  work 
we  are  set  upon,  though  the  fruits  of  the  toil  may  be  different. 
But,  remember,  in  thus  vowing  ourselves  to  be  the  slaves  of 
any  master,  it  ought  to  be  some  subject  of  forethought  with 
us,  what  work  he  is  likely  to  put  us  upon.  You  may  think 
that  the  whole  duty  of  a  soldier  is  to  be  passive,  that  it  is  the 
country  you  have  left  behind  who  is  to  command,  and  you 
have  only  to  obey.  But  are  you  sure  that  you  have  left  all 
your  country  behind,  or  that  the  part  of  it  you  have  so  left  is 
indeed  the  best  part  of  it  ?  Suppose — and,  remember,  it  is 
quite  conceivable — that  you  yourselves  are  indeed  the  best 
part  of  England ;  that  you,  who  have  become  the  slaves, 
ought  to  have  been  the  masters ;  and  that  those  who  are  thc- 
inasters,  ought  to  have  been  the  slaves  1     If  it  is  a  noble  and 


114  THE   CROWN    OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

whole-hearted  England,  whose  bidding  you  are  bound  to  dos 
it  is  well ;  but  if  you  are  yourselves  the  best  of  her  heart,  and 
the  England  you  have  left  be  but  a  half-hearted  England,  how 
say  you  of  your  obedience  ?  You  were  too  proud  to  become 
shopkeepers :  are  you  satisfied  then  to  become  the  servants  of 
shopkeepers  ?  You  were  too  proud  to  become  merchants  of 
farmers  yourselves  :  will  you  have  merchants  or  farmers  then 
for  your  field  marshals  ?  You  had  no  gifts  of  special  grace 
for  Exeter  Hall :  will  you  have  some  gifted  person  thereat 
for  your  commander-in-chief,  to  judge  of  your  work,  and  re- 
ward it  ?  You  imagine  yourselves  to  be  the  army  of  Eng- 
land :  how  if  you  should  find  yourselves,  at  last,  only  the 
police  of  her  manufacturing  towns,  and  the  beadles  of  her 
little  Bethels? 

It  is  not  so  yet,  nor  will  be  so,  I  trust,  for  ever ;  but  what 
I  want  you  to  see,  and  to  be  assured  of,  is,  that  the  ideal 
of  soldiership  is  not  mere  passive  obedience  and  bravery; 
that,  so  far  from  this,  no  country  is  in  a  healthy  state  which 
has  separated,  even  in  a  small  degree,  her  civil  from  her 
military  power.  All  states  of  the  world,  however  great, 
fall  at  once  when  they  use  mercenary  armies ;  and  although 
it  is  a  less  instant  form  of  error  (because  involving  no  na- 
tional taint  of  cowardice),  it  is  yet  an  error  no  less  ultimately 
fatal — it  is  the  error  especially  of  modern  times,  of  which 
we  cannot  yet    know  all  the    calamitous    consequences — to 


WAK.  115 

take  away  the  best  blood  and  strength  of  the  nation,  all  the 
soul-substance  of  it  that  is  brave,  and  careless  of  reward, 
and  scornful  of  pain,  and  faithful  in  trust;  and  to  cast  thai 
into  steel,  and  make  a  mere  sword  of  it;  taking  away  its 
voice  and  will;  but  to  keep  the  worst  part  of  the  nation- 
whatever  is  cowardly,  avaricious,  sensual,  and  faithless— 
and  to  give  to  this  the  voice,  to  this  the  authority,  to  this 
the  chief  privilege,  where  there  is  least  capacity,  of  thought. 
The  fulfilment  of  your  vow  for  the  defence  of  England  will 
by  no  means  consist  in  carrying  out  such  a  system.  You 
are  not  true  soldiers,  if  you  only  mean  to  stand  at  a  shop 
door,  to  protect  shop-boys  who  are  cheating  inside.  A 
soldier's  vow  to  his  country  is  that  he  will  die  for  the 
guardianship  of  her  domestic  virtue,  of  her  righteous  laws, 
and  of  her  anyway  challenged  or  endangered  honour.  A 
state  without  virtue,  without  laws,  and  without  honour,  he 
is  bound  not  to  defend ;  nay,  bound  to  redress  by  his  own 
right  hand  that  which  he  sees  to  be  base  in  her.  So  sternly 
is  this  the  law  of  Nature  and  life,  that  a  nation  once  utterly 
corrupt  can  only  be  redeemed  by  a  military  despotism— 
never  by  talking,  nor  by  its  free  effort.  And  the  healtr: 
of  any  state  consists  simply  in  this:  that  in  it,  those  wh: 
are  wisest  shall  also  be  strongest;  its  rulers  should  be  also 
its  soldiers ;  or,  rather,  by  force  of  intellect  more  than  of 
sword,  its  soldiers  its  rulers.     Whatever  the  hold  which  the 


116  THE    CBOWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

aristocracy  of  England  has  on  the  heart  oi  England,  in 
that  they  are  still  always  in  front  of  ber  battles,  this  bold 
will  not  be  enough,  unless  they  are  also  in  front  of  hei 
thoughts.  And  truly  her  thoughts  need  good  captain's 
eading  now,  if  ever!  Do  you  know  what,  by  this  beautiful 
division  of  labour  (her  brave  men  fighting,  and  her  cowards 
thinking),  she  has  come  at  last  to  think  ?  Here  is  a  bit 
of  paper  in  ray  hand,*  a  good  one  too,  and  an  honest  one  j 
quite  representative  of  the  best  common  public  thought 
of  England  at  this  moment;  and  it  is  holding  forth  in  one 
of  its  leaders  upon  our  '  social  welfare,' — upon  our  '  vivid 
life ' — upon    the    '  political    supremacy    of    Great    Britain.^ 

*  I  do  not  care  to  refer  to  the  journal  quoted,  because  the  article  was 
unworthy  of  its  general  tone,  though  in  order  to  enable  the  audience  to 
verify  the  quoted  sentence,  I  left  the  number  containing  it  on  the  table, 
when  I  delivered  this  lecture.  But  a  saying  of  Baron  Liebig's,  quoted  at 
the  head  of  a  leader  on  the  same  subject  in  the  '  Daily  Telegraph  '  of  Jan- 
uary 11,  1866,  summarily  digests  and  presents  the  maximum  folly  of 
modern  thought  in  this  respect.  '  Civilization,'  says  the  Baron,  '  is  the 
economy  of  power,  and  English  power  is  coal.'  Not  altogether  so,  my 
chemical  friend.  Civilization  is  the  making  of  civil  persons,  which  ij  a 
kind  of  distillation  of  which  alembics  are  incapable,  and  does  not  at  aL' 
imply  the  turning  of  a  small  company  of  gentlemen  into  a  largo  company 
of  ironmongers.  And  English  power  (what  little  of  it  maybe  left),  is  by 
no  means  coal,  but,  indeed,  of  that  which,  '  when  the  whole  world  tunu 
to  ooaL  then  chiefly  lives.' 


WAR.  117 

And  what  do  you  think  all  these  are  owing  to  ?  To  what 
our  English  sires  have  clone  for  ns,  and  taught  us,  age  after 
age?  No:  not  to  that.  To  our  honesty  of  heart,  or  cool 
ness  of  head,  or  steadiness  of  will?  No:  not  to  these.  T 
our  thinkers,  or  our  statesmen,  or  our  poets,  or  our  cap- 
tains, or  our  martyrs,  or  the  patient  labour  of  our  poor? 
No :  not  to  these ;  or  at  least  not  to  these  in  any  chief 
measure.  Nay,  says  the  journal,  '  more  than  any  agency, 
it  is  the  cheapness  and  abundance  of  our  coal  which  have 
made  us  what  we  are.'  If  it  be  so,  then  'ashes  to  ashes' 
be  our  epitaph !  and  the  sooner  the  better.  I  tell  you, 
gentlemen  of  England,  if  ever  you  would  have  your  country 
breathe  the  pure  breath  of  heaven  again,  and  receive  again  a 
soul  into  her  body,  instead  of  rotting  into  a  carcase,  blown 
up  in  the  belly  with  carbonic  acid  (and  great  that  way),  you 
must  think,  and  feel,  for  your  England,  as  well  as  light  for 
her:  you  must  teach  her  that  all  the  true  greatness  she 
ever  had,  or  ever  can  have,  she  won  while  her  fields  wero 
green  and  her  faces  ruddy; — that  greatness  is  still  possible 
for  Englishmen,  even  though  the  ground  be  not  hollow 
under  their  feet,  nor  the  sky  black  over  their  heads  ; — and 
that,  when  the  day  comes  for  their  country  to  lay  her 
honours  in  the  dust,  her  crest  will  not  rise  from  it  more 
loftily  because  it  is  dust  of  coal.  Gentlemen,  I  tell  you, 
solemnly,    that   the   day   i-;    coming   when    the   soldiers   of 


118  THE   CROWif    OF   WILD    OLIVE. 

England  must  be  her  tutors     and  the  captains  of  her  army, 
captains  also  of  her  mind. 

And  now,  remember,  you  soldier  youths,  who  arc.  thui 
in  all  ways  the  hope  of  your  country ;  or  must  be,  if  she 
have  any  hope  :  remember  that  your  litness  for  all  future 
trust  depends  upon  what  you  are  now.  No  good  soldiei 
in  his  old  age  was  ever  careless  or  indolent  in  his  youth. 
Many  a  giddy  and  thoughtless  boy  has  become  a  good 
bishop,  or  a  good  lawyer,  or  a  good  merchant ;  but  no  such 
an  one  ever  became  a  good  general.  I  challenge  you,  in 
all  history,  to  find  a  record  of  a  good  soldier  who  was  not 
grave  and  earnest  in  his  youth.  And,  in  general,  I  have 
no  patience  with  people  who  talk  about  '  the  thoughtless- 
ness of  youth '  indulgently.  I  had  infinitely  rather  hear 
of  thoughtless  old  age,  and  the  indulgence  due  to  that. 
When  a  man  has  done  his  work,  and  nothing  can  any  way 
be  materially  altered  in  his  fate,  let  him  forget  his  toil, 
and  jest  with  his  faie,  if  he  will ;  but  what  excuse  can  you 
find  for  wilfulness  of  thought,  at  the  very  time  when  every 
crisis  of  future  fortune  hangs  on  your  decisions?  A  youth 
thoughtless !  when  all  the  happiness  of  his  home  for  ever 
depends  on  the  chances,  or  the  passions,  of  an  hour  !  A 
youth  thoughtless !  when  the  career  of  all  his  days  depends 
on  the  opportunity  of  a  moment!  A  youth  thoughtless! 
wheu  his  every  act  is  a  foundation-stone  of  future  conduct, 


WAR.  119 

and  every  imagination  a  fountain  of  life  or  death !  Be 
thoughtless  in  any  after  years,  rather  than  now — though, 
indeed,  there  is  only  one  place  where  a  man  may  be  nobly 
thoughtless, — his  deathbed.  No  thinking  should  ever  be 
left  to  be  done  there. 

Having,  then,  resolved  that  you  will  not  waste  recklessly, 
but  earnestly  use,  these  early  days  of  yours,  remember  that 
all  the  duties  of  her  children  to  England  may  be  summed 
in  two  words — industry,  and  honour.  I  say  first,  industry, 
for  it  is  in  this  that  soldier  youth  are  especially  tempted  to 
fail.  Yet,  surely,  there  is  no  reason,  because  your  life  may 
possibly  or  probably  be  shorter  than  other  men's,  that  you 
should  therefore  waste  more  recklessly  the  portion  of  it 
that  is  granted  you  ;  neither  do  the  duties  of  your  profes- 
sion, which  require  you  to  keep  your  bodies  strong,  in  any 
wise  involve  the  keeping  of  your  minds  weak.  So  far 
from  that,  the  experience,  the  hardship,  and  the  activity 
of  a  soldier's  life  render  his  powers  of  thought  more  accu 
rate  than  those  of  other  men  ;  and  while,  for  others,  all 
knowledge  is  often  little  more  than  a  means  of  amusement, 
there  is  no  form  of  science  which  a  soldier  may  net  at 
•tome  time  or  other  find  bearing  on  business  of  life  and 
death,  A  young  mathematician  may  be  excused  for  Ian 
guor  in  studying  curves  to  be  described  only  with  a  pen- 
cil:  but    not    in    tracing    those  which    are    to  be  described 


120  THE    CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

with  a  rocket.     Your  knowledge  of  a  wholesome  herb  raaj 
involve  the  feeding  of  an  army;  and  acquaintance  with  au 
obscure    point   of  geography,  the   success   of  a   campaign. 
Never  waste    an   instant's    time,  therefore  ;  the  sin  of  idle, 
ness    is    a    thousand-fold    greater    in    you    than    in    other 
youths ;  for  the  fates  of  those  who  will   one  day  be   under 
your  command  hang  upon    your  knowledge  ;   lost  momenta 
now  will  be  lost  lives   then,  and    every  instant  which    you 
carelessly  take  for  play,  you  buy  with  blood.     But  there  is 
one  way  of  wasting  time,  of  all  the  vilest,  because  it  wastes, 
not  time,  only,  but  the  interest  and  energy  of  your   minds. 
Of  all   the    ungentlemanly  habits    into  which   you  can  fall, 
the  vilest  is  betting,  or  interesting  yourselves  in  the  issues 
of  betting.     It    unites    neaidy  every  condition  of  folly  and 
vice  ;  you  concentrate  your  interest  upon  a  matter  of  chance, 
instead  of  upon  a  subject  of  true  knowledge ;  and  you  back 
opinions  which   you    have   no    grounds  for  forming,  merely 
because  they  are  your  own.     All  the  insolence  of  egotism 
is  in  this;  and  so  far  as  the  love  of  excitement  is  compli- 
cated with  the  hope  of  winning  money,  you  turn  yourselves 
into  the  basest  sort  of  tradesmen — those  who  live  by  specu- 
lation.     Were   there    no    other    ground    for    industry,    this 
would  be  a  sufficient  one;    that  it  protected  you  from  the 
temptation  to   so   scandalous   a  vice.     Work   faithfully,  and 
you  will  put  yourselves  in  possession  of  a  glorious  and  en> 


WAB.  121 

larging  happiness;  not  such  as   can   be  won    by  the   speed 
of  a  horse,  or  marred  by  the  obliquity  of  a  ball. 

First,  then,  by  industry  you  must  fulfil  your  vow  to  your 
country;    but  all   industry  and   earnestness  will  be  useless 
unless  they  are  consecrated  by  your  resolution  to  be  in  all 
things  men  of  honour ;  not  honour  in  the  common  sense  only, 
but  in  the  highest.     Rest  on  the  force  of  the  two  main  words 
in  the  great  verse,    integer  vitse,   scelerisque  purus.     You 
have  vowed  your  life  to   England ;    give  it  her  wholly — a 
bright,  stainless,  perfect  life — a  knightly  life.     Because  you 
have  to  fight  with  machines  instead  of  lances,  there  may  be  a 
necessity  for  more  ghastly  danger,  but  there  is  none  for  less 
worthiness  of  character,  than  in  olden   time.     You  may  be 
true  knights  yet,  though  perhaps  not  equites  /  you  may  have 
to  call  yourselves  '  cannonry '  instead  of  '  chivalry,'  but  that 
is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  call  yourselves  true  men. 
So  the  first  thing  you  have  to  see  to  in  becoming  soldiers 
is  that  you  make  yourselves  wholly  true.     Courage  is  a  mere 
matter  of  course   among  any  ordinarily    well-born    youths ; 
but  neither  truth  nor  gentleness  is  matter  of  course.     You 
must  bind  them  like  shields  about  your  necks ;  you  must 
write  them  on  the  tables  of  your  hearts.     Though  it  be  not 
exacted  of  you,  yet  exact  it  of  yourselves,  this  vow  of  stainless 
truth.      Your    hearts  are,  if  you  leave  them  unstirred,  as 
tombs  in  which  a  god  lies  buried.     Vow  yourselves  crusader* 


122  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE, 

to  redeem  that  sacred  sepulchre.  And  remember,  before 
all  things — for  no  other  memory  will  be  so  protective  of 
you — that  the  highest  law  of  this  knightly  truth  is  that 
under  which  it  is  vowed  to  women.  Whomsoever  else  you 
deceive,  whomsoever  you  injure,  whomsoever  you  leave 
unaided,  you  must  not  deceive,  nor  injure,  nor  leave  unaided, 
according  to  your  power,  any  woman  of  whatever  rank. 
Believe  me,  every  virtue  of  the  higher  phases  of  manly 
character  begins  in  this ; — in  truth  and  modesty  before  the 
face  of  all  maidens ;  in  truth  and  pity,  or  truth  and  reverence, 
to  all  womanhood. 

And  now  let  me  turn  for  a  moment  to  you, — wives  and 
maidens,  who  are  the  souls  of  soldiers ;  to  you, — mothers, 
who  have  devoted  your  children  to  the  great  hierarchy  of 
war.  Let  me  ask  you  to  consider  what  part  you  have  to 
take  for  the  aid  of  those  who  love  you ;  for  if  you  fail  in  your 
part  they  cannot  fulfil  theirs ;  such  absolute  helpmates  you 
are  that  no  man  can  stand  without  that  help,  nor  labour  in  his 
own  strength. 

I  know  your  hearts,  and  that  the  truth  of  them  never 
fails  when  an  hour  of  trial  comes  which  you  recognise  for 
such.  But  you  know  not  when  the  hour  of  trial  first  finds 
you,  nor  when  it  verily  finds  you.  You  imagine  that  yju  are 
only  called  upon  to  wait  and  to  suffer ;  to  surrender  and  to 
mourn.     You  know   that  you  must   not  weaken  the  heart* 


WAE.  123 

of  yonr  husbands  and  lovers,  even  by  the  one  fear  of  which 
those  hearts  are  capable, — the  fear  of  parting  from  you,  or  of 
causing  you  grief.  Through  weary  years  of  separation- 
through  fearful  expectancies  of  unknown  fate ;  through  the 
tenfold  bitterness  ot  the  sorrow  which  might  so  easily  have 
been  joy,  and  the  tenfold  yearning  for  glorious  life  struck 
down  in  its  prime — through  all  these  agonies  you  fail  not, 
and  never  will  fail.  But  your  trial  is  not  in  these.  To  be 
heroic  in  danger  is  little; — you  are  English  women.  To  be 
heroic  in  change  and  sway  of  fortune  is  little ; — for  do  you 
not  love  ?  To  be  patient  through  the  great  chasm  and  pause 
of  loss  is  little  ; — for  do  you  not  still  love  in  heaven  ?  But  to 
be  heroic  in  happiness ;  to  bear  yourselves  gravely  and  right- 
eously in  the  dazzling  of  the  sunshine  of  morning ;  not  to  forget 
the  God  in  whom  you  trust,  when  He  gives  you  most ;  not 
to  fail  those  who  trust  you,  when  they  seem  to  need  you 
least ;  this  is  the  difficult  fortitude.  It  is  not  in  the  pining 
of  absence,  not  in  the  peril  of  battle,  not  in  the  wasting  of 
sickness,  that  your  prayer  should  be  most  passionate,  or  your 
guardianship  most  tender.  Pray,  mothers  and  maidens,  for 
your  young  soldiers  in  the  bloom  of  their  pride ;  pray  for 
them,  while  the  only  dangers  round  them  are  in  their  own 
wayward  wills ;  watch  yon,  and  pray,  when  they  have  to 
face,  not  death,  but  temptation.  But  it  is  this  fortitude  also 
for  which  there    is    the  crowning  reward.     Believe  me,  the 


124  THE   CROWN    OF    WILD    OLIVE. 

whole  course  and  character  of  your  lovers'  lives  is  in  yortt 
hands ;  what  you  would  have  them  be,  they  shall  be,  if  you 
not  only  desire  to  have  them  so,  but  deserve  to  have  them 
so  ;  for  they  are  but  mirrors  in  which  you  will  see  yourselves 
imaged.  If  you  are  frivolous,  they  will  be  so  also ;  if  yoc 
have  no  understanding  of  the  scope  of  their  duty,  they  also 
will  forget  it ;  they  will  listen, — they  can  listen, — to  no  other 
interpretation  of  it  than  that  uttered  from  your  lips.  Bid 
them  be  brave; — they  will  be  brave  for  you;  bid  them  be 
cowards ;  and  how  noble  soever  they  be ; — they  will  quail  for 
you.  Bid  them  be  wise,  aud  they  will  be  wise  for  you ;  mock 
at  their  counsel,  they  will  be  fools  for  you :  such  and  so  abso- 
lute is  your  rule  over  them.  You  fancy,  perhaps,  as  you  have 
been  told  so  often,  that  a  wife's  rule  should  only  be  over  her 
husband's  house,  not  over  his  mind.  Ah,  no  !  the  true  rule  is 
just  the  reverse  of  that;  a  true  wife,  in  her  husband's  house, 
is  his  servant ;  it  is  in  his  heart  that  she  is  queeu.  Whatever 
of  the  best  he  can  conceive,  it  is  her  part  to  be  ;  whatever  of 
highest  he  can  hope,  it  is  hers  to  promise ;  all  that  is  dark  in 
him  she  must  purge  into  purity ;  all  that  is  failing  in  him  she 
must  strengthen  into  truth :  from  her,  through  all  the 
World's  clamour,  he  must  win  his  praise  ;  in  her,  through  al 
the  world's  warfare,  he  must  find  his  peace. 

And,  now,  but  one  word  more.     You   may  wonder,  per 
haps,  that  I  have  spoken  all   this  night  in  praise  of  war 


WAR.  12£ 

Yet,  truly,  If  it  might  be,  I,  for  one,  would  fain  join  in  the 
cadence  of  hammer-strokes  that  should  beat  swords  into 
ploughshares :  and  that  this  cannot  be,  is  not  the  fault  of  us 
men.  It  is  your  fault.  Wholly  yours.  Only  by  your  com 
mand,  or  by  your  permission,  can  any  contest  take  place 
among  us.  And  the  real,  final,  reason  for  all  the  poverty, 
misery,  and  rage  of  battle,  throughout  Europe,  is  simply  that 
you  women,  however  good,  however  religious,  however  self- 
sacrificing  for  those  whom  you  love,  are  too  selfish  and  too 
thoughtless  to  take  pains  for  any  creature  out  of  your  own 
immediate  circles.  You  fancy  that  you  are  sorry  for  the 
pain  of  others.  Now  I  just  tell  you  this,  that  if  the  usual 
course  of  war,  instead  of  unroofing  peasants'  houses,  and 
ravaging  peasants'  fields,  merely  broke  the  china  upon  your 
own  drawing-room  tables,  no  war  in  civilised  countries 
would  last  a  week.  I  tell  you  more,  that  at  whatever 
moment  you  chose  to  put  a  period  to  war,  you  could  do  it 
with  less  trouble  than  you  take  any  day  to  go  out  to  dinner. 
You  know,  or  at  least  you  might  know  if  you  would  think, 
that  every  battle  you  hear  of  has  made  many  widows  and 
orphans.  We  have,  none  of  us,  heart  enough  truly  to  mourn 
with  these.  But  at  least  we  might  put  on  the  outer  symbols 
Oi  mourning  with  them.  Let  but  every  Christian  lady  who 
has  conscience  toward  God,  vow  that  she  will  mourn,  at  least 
outwardly,  for  His  killed  creatures.     Your  praying  is  use- 


126  THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE. 

less,  and  your  churehgoing  mere  mockery  of  God,  if  you 
have  not  plain  obedience  in  you  enough  for  this.  Let  every 
lady  in  the  upper  classes  of  civilised  Europe  simply  vow  that, 
TV  bile  any  cruel  war  proceeds,  she  will  wear  black; — a  mute's 
ulack, — with  no  jewel,  no  ornament,  no  excuse  for,  or  eva- 
sion into,  prettiness. — I  tell  you  again,  no  war  would  last  a 
week. 

And  lastly.  You  women  of  England  are  all  now  shrieking 
with  one  voice, — you  and  your  clergymen  together, — because 
you  hear  of  your  Bibles  being  attacked.  If  you  choose  to 
obey  your  Bibles,  you  will  never  care  who  attacks  them.  It 
is  just  because  you  never  fulfil  a  single  downright  precept  of 
the  Book,  that  you  are  so  careful  for  its  credit :  and  just 
because  you  don't  care  to  obey  its  whole  words,  that  you  are 
so  particular  about  the  letters  of  them.  The  Bible  tells  you 
to  dress  plainly, — and  you  are  mad  for  finery ;  the  Bible  tells 
you  to  have  pity  on  the  poor, — and  you  crush  them  under 
your  carriage- wheels ;  the  Bible  tells  you  to  do  judgment 
and  justice, — and  you  do  not  know,  nor  care  to  know,  so 
much  as  what  the  Bible  word  'justice  means'  Do 
but  learn  so  much  of  God's  truth  as  that  comes  to ;  know 
what  He  means  when  He  tells  you  to  be  just:  and  teach 
your  sons,  that  their  bravery  is  but  a  fool's  boast,  and  their 
deeds  but  a  firebrand's  tossing,  unless  they  are  indeed  Just 
men,  and  Perfect  in  the  Fear  of  God  ; — and  you  will  soon 


WAB.  121 

have  no  more  war,  unless  it  be  indeed  such  as  is  willed  bj 
Him,  of  whom,  though  Prince  of  Peace,  it  is  also  written,  '  In 
Righteousness  He  doth  judge,  and  make  war.' 


THE   END. 


THE 


QUEEN  OF  THE  AIR 


BEING 


A  STUDY  OF  THE  GREEK  MY1HS 


CLOUD  AND  STORM. 


JOHN  RUSKIN,  LL.D. 

I 


NEW    YORK: 

JOHN   WILEY   &    SONS,.  PUBLISHERS, 

15  Astor  Place. 
1888. 


PREFACE 


My  dayw  and  strength  have  lately  been  n.neh  broken; 
and  I  never  more  felt  the  insufficiency  uf  both  than 
in  preparing  for  the  press  the  following  desultory  mem- 
oranda on  a  most  noble  subject.  But  I  leave  them 
now  as  they  stand,  for  no  time  nor  labour  would  be 
enough  to  complete  them  to  my  contentment  ;  and  I 
believe  that  they  contain  suggestions  which  may  be 
followed  with  safety,  by  persons  who  are  beginning  to 
take  interest  in  the  aspects  of  mythology,  which  only 
recent  investigation  has  removed  from  the  region  of 
conjecture  into  that  of  rational  inquiry.  I  have  some 
advantage,  also,  from  my  field  work,  in  the  interpretation 
of  myths  relating  to  natural  phenomena ;  and  I  have 
had  always  near  me,  since  we  were  at  college  together,  a 
sure,  and  unweariedly  kind,  guide,  in  my  friend  Charlea 
Newton,  to- whom  we  owe  the  finding  of  more  treasure  in 


IV  PREFACE. 

mines  of.  marble,  than,  were  it  rightly  estimated,  all 
California  could  buy.  I  must  not,  however,  permit  the 
chance  of  his  name  being  in  any  wise  associated  with  my 
errors.  Much  of  my  work  has  been  done  obstinately  in 
my  own  way ;  and  he  is  never  responsible  for  me,  though 
he  has  often  kept  me  right,  or  at  least  enabled  me  to  ad- 
vance in  a  right  direction.  Absolutely  right  no  one  can 
be  in  such  matters  ;  nor  does  a  day  pass  without  convin- 
cing every  honest  student  of  antiquity  of  some  partial 
error,  and  showing  him  better  how  to  think,  and  where 
to  look.  But  I  knew  that  there  was  no  hope  of  my  being 
able  to  enter  with  advantage  on  the  fields  of  history 
opened  by  the  splendid  investigation  of  recent  philolo- 
gists ;  though  I  could  qualify  myself,  by  attention  and 
sympathy,  to  understand  here  and  there,  a  verse  of 
Homer's  or  Hesiod's,  as  the  simple  people  did  for  whom 
they  sang. 

Even  while  I  correct  these  sheets  for  press,  a  lecture  by 
Professor  Tyndall  has  been  put  into  my  hands,  which  I 
ought  to  have  heard  last  16th  of  January,  but  was  hin- 
dered by  mischance ;  and  which,  I  now  find,  completes, 
in  two  important  particulars,  the  evidence  of  an  instinc- 
tive truth  in  ancient  symbolism ;  showing,  first,  that  the 
Greek  conception  of  an  aetherial  element  pervading  space 


PREFACE. 


is  justified  by  the  closest  reasoning  of  modern  physicists  j 
and,  secondly,  that  the  blue  of  the  sky,  hitherto  thought 
to  be  caused  by  watery  vapour,  is,  indeed,  reflected  from 
the  divided  air  itself;  so  that  the  bright  blue  of  the  eyes 
of  Athena,  and  the  deep  blue  of  her  aegis,  prove  to  be  ac- 
curate mythic  expressions  of  natural  phenomena  which 
it  is  an  uttermost  triumph  of  recent  science  to  have 
revealed. 

Indeed,  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  triumph  more 
complete.  To  form,  "within  an  experimental  tube,  a 
bit  of  more  perfect  sky  than  the  sky  itself !  "  here  is 
magic  of  the  finest  sort !  singularly  reversed  from  that 
of  old  time,  which  only  asserted  its  competency  to  en- 
close in  bottles  elemental  forces  that  were — not  of  the 
sky. 

Let  me,  in  thanking  Professor  Tyndall  for  the  true 
wonder  of  this  piece  of  work,  ask  his  pardon,  and  that 
of  all  masters  in  physical  science,  for  any  words  of  mine, 
either  in  the  following  pages  or  elsewhere,  that  may  ever 
seem  to  fail  in  the  respect  due  to  their  great  powers  of 
thought,  or  in  the  admiration  due  to  the  far  scope  of  their 
discovery.  But  I  will  be  judged  by  themselves,  if  I  have 
not  bitter  reason  to  ask  them  to  teach  us  more  than  yet 
they  have  taught. 


VI  PREFACE. 

This  first  day  of  May,  1869,  I  am  writing  where  lirjf 
work  was  begun  thirty-five  years  ago, — within  sight  of 
the  snows  of  the  higher  Alps.  In  that  half  of  the  permit- 
ted life  of  man,  I  have  seen  strange  evil  brought  upon 
every  scene  that  I  best  loved,  or  tried  to  make  beloved  by 
others.  The  light  which  once  flushed  those  pale  summits 
with  its  rose  at  dawn,  and  purple  at  sunset,  is  now 
umbered  and  faint ;  the  air  which  once  inlaid  the  clefts 
of  all  their  golden  crags  with  azure,  is  now  defiled  with 
languid  coils  of  smoke,  belched  from  worse  than  volcanic 
fires ;  their  very  glacier  waves  are  ebbing,  and  their 
snows  fading,  as  if  Hell  had  breathed  on  them  ;  the 
waters  that  once  sank  at  their  feet  into  crystalline  rest,  are 
now  dimmed  and  foul,  from  deep  to  deep,  and  shore  to 
shore.  These  are  no  careless  words — they  are  accurately — • 
horribly— true.  I  know  what  the  Swiss  lakes  were  ;  no 
pool  of  Alpine  fountain  at  its  source  was  clearer.  This 
morning,  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  at  half  a  mile  from 
the  beach,  I  could  scarcely  see  my  oar-blade  a  fathom 
deep. 

The  light,  the  air,  the  waters,  all  defiled  !  How  of  the 
earth  itself?  Take  this  one  fact  for  type  of  honour  done  by 
the  modern  Swiss  to  the  earth  of  his  native  land.  There 
used  to  be  a  little  rock  at  the  end  of  the  avenue  by  tho 


PBEFACE.  Vll 

port  of  Neuchatel ;  there,  the  last  marble  of  the  foot  ot 
Jura,  sloping  to  the  blue  water,  and  (at  this  time  of  year) 
covered  with  bright  pink  tufts  of  Saponaria.  I  went, 
three  days  since,  to  gather  a  blossom  at  the  place.  The 
goodly  native  rock  and  its  flowers  were  covered  with  the 
dust  and  refuse  of  the  town ;  but,  in  the  middle  of  the 
avenue,  was  a  newly-constructed  artificial  rockery,  with  a 
fountain  twisted  through  a  spinning  spout,  and  an  in- 
scription on  one  of  its  loose-tumbled  stones, — 

"Aux  Botanistes, 
Le  club  Jurassique." 

Ah,  masters  of  modern  science,  give  me  back  my 
Athena  out  of  your  vials,  and  seal,  if  it  may  be,  once 
more,  Asmodeus  therein.  You  have  divided  the  ele- 
ments, and  united  them ;  enslaved  them  upon  the 
earth,  and  discerned  them  in  the  stars.  Teach  us, 
now,  but  this  of  them,  which  is  all  that  man  need 
know, — that  the  Air  is  given  to  him  for  his  li  e ;  and 
the  Rain  to  his  thirst,  and  for  his  baptism  ;  and  the 
Fire  for  warmth ;  and  the  Sun  for  3i*»h* »  wlt 
Earth  for  his  meat — and  his  Res.. 

Vovi.Y,  May  1,  I860. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    THE    AIR 


ATHENA    CHALINITIS.* 

{Athena  in  the  Heavens?) 

Lecture  on  the  Greek  Myths  of  Storm,  given  (partly)  in  University  Col- 
lege, London,  March  9th,  1869  . 

1.  I  will  not  ask  your  pardon  for  endeavouring  to  interest 
you  in  the  subject  of  Greek  Mythology ;  but  I  must  ask 
your  permission  to  approach  it  in  a  temper  differing  from 
that  in  which  it  is  frequently  treated.  We  cannot  justly 
interpret  the  religion  of  any  people,  unless  we  are  prepared 
to  admit  that  we  ourselves,  as  well  as  they,  are  liable  to 
error  in  matters  of  faith  ;  and  that  the  convictions  of  others, 
however  singular,  may  in  some  points  have  been  well 
founded,  while  our  own,  however  reasonable,  may  in  some 
particulars  be  mistaken.  You  must  forgive  me,  therefore, 
for  not  always  distinctively  calling  the  creeds  of  the  past 
"superstition,"  and  the  creeds  of  the  present  day  "reli- 
gion ;  "  as  well  as  for  assuming  that  a  faith  now  confessed 
may  sometimes  be  superficial,  and  that  a  faith  long  for- 
gotten may  once  have  been  sincere.     It  is  the  task  of  the 

*  "Athena  the  Restrainer."     The  name  is  given  to  her  as  having 
helped  Bellerophon  to  bridle  Pegasus,  the  flying  cloud. 


2  THE    QUEEN   OF    THE    AIR. 

Divine  to  condemn  the  errors  of  antiquity,  and  of  the  Phi 
lologist  to  account  for  them  :  I  will  only  pray  you  to  read, 
with  patience,  and  human  sympathy,  the  thoughts  of  men 
who  lived  without  blame  in  a  darkness  they  could  not  dis- 
pel ;  and  to  remember  that,  whatever  charge  of  folly  may 
justly  attach  to  the  saying, — "  There  is  no  God,"  the 
folly  is  prouder,  d'/jper,  and  less  pardonable,  in  saying, 
"  There  is  no  God  but  for  me." 

2.  A  Myth,  in  its  simplest  definition,  is  a  story  with  a 
meaning  attached  to  it,  other  than  it  seems  to  have  at  first ; 
and  the  fact  that  it  has  such  a  meaning  is  generally  mark- 
ed by  some  of  its  circumstances  being  extraordinary,  or,  in 
the  common  use  of  the  word,  unnatural.  Thus,  if  I  tell 
you  that  Hercules  killed  a  water-serpent  in  the  lake  of  Ler 
na,  and  if  I  mean,  and  you  understand,  nothing  more  than 
that  fact,  £he  story,  whether  true  or  false,  is  not  a  myth. 
But  if  by  telling  you  this,  I  mean  that  Hercules  purified 
the  stagnation  of  maivy  streams  from  deadly  miasmata,  my 
story,  however  simple,  is  a  true  myth ;  only,  as,  if  I  left  it 
in  that  simplicity,  you  would  probably  look  for  nothing  be- 
yond, it  will  be  wise  in  me  to  surprise  your  attention  by 
adding  some  singular  circumstance ;  for  instance,  that  the 
water-snake  had  several  heads,  which  revived  as  fast  as 
they  were  killed,  and  which  poisoned  even  the  foot  that 
trode  upon  them  as  they  slept.  And  in  proportion  to  the 
fulness  of  intended  meaning  I  shall  probably  multiply  and' 
refine  upon  these  improbabilities ;  as,  suppose,  if,  instead 
of  desiring  only  to  teL  you  that  Hercules  purified  a  marsh, 
I  wished  you  to  understand  that  he  contended  with  the 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEAVENS.  3 

venom  and  vapour  of  envy  and  evil  ambition,  whether  in 
other  men's  souls  or  in  his  own,  and  choked  that  malaria 
only  by  supreme  toil, — I  might  tell  you  that  this  serpent 
was  formed  by  the  Goddess  whose  pride  was  in  the  tria. 
of  Hercules ;  and  that  its  place  of  abode  was  by  a  palm- 
tree  ;  and  that  for  every  head  of  it  that  was  cut  off,  two 
rose  up  with  renewed  life  ;  and  that  the  hero  found  at  last 
he  could  not  kill  the  creature  at  all  by  cutting  its  heads 
off  or  crushing  them  ;  but  only  by  burning  them  down  ; 
and  that  the  midmost  of  them  could  not  be  killed  even 
that  way,  but  had  to  be  buried  alive.  Only  in  proportion 
as  I  mean  more,  I  shall  certainly  appear  more  absurd  in 
my  statement ;  and  at  last,  when  I  get  unendurably  sig- 
nificant, all  practical  persons  will  agree  that  I  was  talking 
mere  nonsense  from  the  beginning,  and  never  meant 
anything  at  all. 

3.  It  is  just  possible,  however,  also,  that  the  story-teller 
may  all  along  have  meant  nothing  but  what  he  said  ;  and 
that,  incredible  as  the  events  may  appear,  he  himself  liter- 
ally believed — and  expected  you  also  to  believe — all  this 
about  Hercules,  without  any  latent  moral  or  history  what- 
ever. And  it  is  very  necessary,  in  reading  traditions  of 
this  kind,  to  determine,  first  of  all,  whether  you  are  listen- 
ing to  a  simple  person,  who  is  relating  what,  at  all  events, 
he  believes  to  be  true  (and  may,  therefore,  possibly  have 
been  so  to  some  extent),  or  to  a  reserved  philosopher,  who 
is  veiling  a  theory  of  the  universe  under  the  grotesque  of 
a  fairy  tale.  It  is,  in  general,  more  likely  that  the  first 
"iipposition  should  be  the  right  one: — simple  and  credu 


4  THE   QUEEN   OF    THE   AIR. 

lous  persons  are,  perhaps  fortunately,  more  common  than 
philosophers  :  and  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  you 
should  take  their  innocent  testimony  as  it  was  meant,  and 
not  eiface,  under  the  graceful  explanation  which  your 
cultivated  ingenuity  may  suggest,  either  the  evidence  their 
story  may  contain  (such  as  it  is  worth)  of  an  extraordinary 
event  having  really  taken  place,  or  the  unquestionable 
light  which  it  will  cast  upon  the  character  of  the  person 
by  whom  it  was  frankly  believed.  And  to  deal  with  Greek 
religion  honestly,  you  must  at  once  understand  that  this 
literal  belief  was,  in  the  mind  of  the  general  people,  as 
deeply  rooted  as  ours  in  the  legends  of  our  own  sacred 
book  ;  and  that  a  basis  of  unmiraculous  event  was  as  little 
suspected,  and  an  explanatory  symbolism  as  rarely  traced, 
by  them,  as  by  us. 

You  must,  therefore,  observe  that  I  deeply  degrade  the 
position  which  such  a  myth  as  that  just  referred  to  occu- 
pied in  the  Greek  mind,  by  comparing  it  (for  fear  of  otfend- 
ing  you)  to  our  story  of  St.  George  and  the  Dragon.  Still, 
the  analogy  is  perfect  in  minor  respects ;  and  though  it 
fails  to  give  you  any  notion  of  the  vitally  religious  earnest- 
ness of  the  Greek  faith,  it  will  exactly  illustrate  the  man- 
ner in  which  faith  laid  hold  of  its  objects. 

4.  This  story  of  Hercules  and  the  Hydra,  then,  was  to 
the  general  Greek  mind,  in  its  best  days,  a  tale  about  a 
real  hero  and  a  real  monster.  Not  one  in  a  thousand  knew 
anything  of  the  \yay  in  which  the  story  had  arisen,  any 
more  than  the  English  peasant  generally  is  aware  of  the 
plebeian  origin  of  St.  George  ;  or  supposes  that  there  were 


ATHENA    EST   THE   HEAVENS.  5 

once  alive  in  the  world,  with  sharp  teeth  and  claws,  real, 
and  very  ugly,  flying  dragons.  On  the  other  hand,  few 
persons  traced  any  moral  or  symbolical  meaning  in  the 
Btory,  and  the  average  Greek  was  as  far  from  imagining 
any  interpretation  like  that  I  have  just  given  you,  as  an 
average  Englishman  is  from  seeing  in  St.  George  the  Hed 
Cross  Knight  of  Spenser,  or  in  the  Dragon  the  Spirit  of 
Infidelity.  But,  for  all  that,  there  was  a  certain  under- 
current of  consciousness  in  all  minds,  that  the  figures 
meant  more  than  they  at  first  showed  ;  and,  according  to 
each  man's  own  faculties  of  sentiment,  he  judged  and  read 
them ;  just  as  a  Knight  of  the  Garter  reads  more  in  the 
jewel  on  his  collar  than  the  George  and  Dragon  of  a 
public-house  expresses  to  the  host  or  to  his  customers. 
Thus,  to  the  mean  person  the  myth  always  meant  little  ; 
to  the  noble  person,  much :  and  the  greater  their  famili- 
arity with  it,  the  more  contemptible  it  became  to  the  one, 
and  the  more  sacred  to  the  other :  until  vulgar  commenta 
tors  explained  it  entirely  away,  while  Virgil  made  it  the 
crowning  glory  of  his  choral  hymn  to  Hercules 

"  Around  thee,  powerless  to  infect  thy  soul, 
Rose,  in  his  crested  crowd,  the  Lerna  worm." 

"  Non  te  rationis  egentem 
Lernceus  turba  capitum  circumstetit  anguis." 

And  although,  in  any  special  toil  of  the  hero's  life,  the 
moral  interpretation  was  rarely  with  definiteness  attached 
to  its  event,  yet  in  the  whole  course  of  the  life,  not  only  a 
symbolical  meaning,  but  the  warrant  for  the  existence  of 


6  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   ATE. 

a  real  spiritual  power,  was  apprehended  of  all  men.  Her- 
cules was  no  dead  hero,  to  be  remembered  only  as  a  victoi 
over  monsters  of  the  past — harmless  now,  as  slain.  He 
was  the  perpetual  type  and  mirror  of  heroism,  and  its  pre 
Bent  and  living  aid  against  every  ravenous  form  of  human 
trial  and  pain. 

5.  But,  if  we  seek  to  know  more  than  this,  and  to  ascer- 
tain the  manner  in  which  the  story  first  crystallized  into 
its  shape,  we  shall  find  ourselves  led  back  generally  to 
one  or  other  of  two  sources — either  to  actual  historical 
events,  represented  by  the  fancy  under  figures  personify- 
ing them  ;  or  else  to  natural  phenomena  similarly  endowed 
with  life  by  the  imaginative  power,  usually  more  or  less 
under  the  influence  of  terror.  The  historical  myths  we 
must  leave  the  masters  of  history  to  follow ;  they,  and  the 
events  they  record,  being  yet  involved  in  great,  though 
attractive  and  penetrable,  mystery.  But  the  stars,  and 
hills,  and  storms  are  with  us  now.  as  they  were  with  others 
of  old  ;  and  it  only  needs  that  we  look  at  them  with  the 
earnestness  of  those  childish  eyes  to  understand  the  first 
words  spoken  of  them  by  the  children  of  men.  And  then, 
in  all  the  most  beautiful  and  enduring  myths,  we  shall 
find,  not  only  a  literal  story  of  a  real  person, — not  only  a 
parallel  imagery  of  moral  principle, — but  an  underlying 
worship  of  natural  phenomena,  out  of  which  both  have 
sprung,  and  in  which  both  for  ever  remain  rooted.  Thus, 
from  the  real  sun,  rising  and  setting; — from  the  real 
atmosphere,  calm  in  its  dominion  of  unfading  blue,  and 
fierce  in  its  descent  of  tempest, — the  Greek  forms  first  thp 


ATHENA   EST   THE   HEAVENS.  7 

idea  of  two  entirely  personal  and  corporeal  gods,  whose 
limbs  are  clothed  in  divine  flesh,  and  whose  brovs  are 
crowned  with  divine  beauty;  yet  so  real  that  the  quiver 
rattles  at  their  shoulder,  and  the  chariot  bends  beneath 
their  weight.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  collaterally  with 
these  corporeal  images,  and  never  for  one  instant  separated 
from  them,  he  conceives  also  two  omnipresent  spiritual 
influences,  of  which  one  illuminates,  as  the  sun,  with  a 
constant  fire,  whatever  in  humanity  is  skilful  and  wise ; 
and  the  other,  like  the  living  air,  breathes  the  calm  of 
heavenly  fortitude,  and  strength  of  righteous  anger,  into 
every  human  breast  that  is  pure  and  brave. 

6.  Now,  therefore,  in  nearly  every  myth  of  importance, 
and  certainly  in  every  one  of  those  of  which  I  shall  speak 
to-night,  you  have  to  discern  these  three  structural  parts — 
the  root  and  the  two  branches  : — the  root,  in  ph}rsical  ex- 
istence, sun,  or  sky,  or  cloud,  or  sea;  then  the  personal  in- 
carnation of  that;  becoming  a  trusted  and  companionable 
deity,  with  whom  you  may  walk  hand  in  hand,  as  a  child 
with  its  brother  or  its  sister;  and,  lastly,  the  moral  signi- 
ficance of  the  image,  which  is  in  all  the  great  myths  eter- 
nally and  beneficently  true. 

7.  The  great  myths  ;  that  is  to  say,  myths  made  by  great 
people.  For  the  first  plain  fact  about  myth-making  is  one 
which  has  been  most  strangely  lost  sigl  t  of, — that  you 
cannot  make  a  myth  unless  you  have  something  to  make 
it  of.  You  cannot  tell  a  secret  which  you  don't  know.  Ii 
the  myth  is  about  the  sky,  it  must  have  been  made  by 
somebody  who  had  looked  at  the  sky.    If  the  myth  is  aboul 


8  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

justice  and  fortitude,  it  must  have  been  made  by  some  one 
who  knew  what  it  was  to  be  just  or  patient.  According  to 
the  quantity  of  understanding  in  the  person  will  be  the 
quantity  of  significance  in  his  fable  ;  and  the  myth  of  a 
simple  and  ignorant  race  must  necessarily  mean  little,  be- 
cause a  simple  and  ignorant  race  have  little  to  mean.  So 
the  great  question  in  reading  a  story  is  always,  not  what 
wild  hunter  dreamed,  or  what  childish  race  first  dreaded 
it ;  but  what  wise  man  first  perfectly  told,  and  what  strong 
people  first  perfectly  lived  by  it.  And  the  real  meaning 
of  any  myth  is  that  which  it  has  at  the  noblest  age  of  the 
nation  among  whom  it  is  current.  The  farther  back  you 
pierce,  the  less  significance  you  will  find,  until  you  come 
to  the  first  narrow  thought,  which,  indeed,  contains  the 
germ  of  the  accomplished  tradition  ;  but  only  as  the  seed 
contains  the  flower.  As  the  intelligence  and  passion  of 
the  race  develop,  the}7  cling  to  and  nourish  their  beloved 
and  sacred  legend  ;  leaf  by  leaf  it  expands  under  the  touch 
of  more  pure  affections,  and  more  delicate  imagination, 
until  at  last  the  perfect  fable  burgeons  out  into  symmetry 
of  milky  stem,  and  honied  bell. 

8.  But  through  whatever  changes  it  may  pass,  remenibei 
that  our  right  reading  of  it  is  wholly  dependent  on  the 
materials  we  have  in  our  own  minds  for  an  intelligent 
answering  sympathy.  If  it  first  arose  among  a  people  who 
dwelt  under  stainless  skies,  and  measured  their  journeya 
by  ascending  and  declining  stars,  we  certainly  cannot  read 
their  story,  if  we  have  never  seen  anything  above  us  ia 
the  day,  but  smoke ;  nor  anything  round  us  in  the  night  but 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEAVENS.  V 

candles.  If  the  tale  goes  on  to  change  clouds  or  planet3 
into  living  creatures, — to  invest  them  with  fair  forms — « 
and  inflame  them  with  mighty  passions,  we  can  only  un- 
derstand the  story  of  the  human-hearted  things,  in  so  far 
as  we  ourselves  take  pleasure  in  the  perfectness  of  visible 
form,  or  can  sympathize,  by  an  effort  of  imagination,  with 
the  strange  people  who  had  other  loves  than  that  of  wealth, 
and  other  interests  than  those  of  commerce.  And,  lastly,  if 
the  myth  complete  itself  to  the  fulfilled  thoughts  of  the 
nation,  by  attributing  to  the  gods,  whom  they  have  carved 
out  of  their  fantasy,  continual  presence  with  their  own 
souls :  and  their  every  effort  for  good  is  finally  guided  by 
the  sense  of  the  companionship,  the  praise,  and  the  pure 
will  of  Immortals,  we  shall  be  able  to  follow  them  into 
this  last  circle  of  their  faith  only  in  the  degree  in  which  the 
better  parts  of  our  own  beings  have  been  also  stirred  by  the 
aspects  of  nature,  or  strengthened  by  her  laws.  It  may  be 
easy  to  prove  that  the  ascent  of  Apollo  in  his  chariot  sig- 
nifies nothing  but  the  rising  of  the  sun.  But  what  does  the 
sunrise  itself  signify  to  us  ?  If  only  languid  return  to  friv- 
olous amusement,  or  fruitless  labour,  it  will,  indeed,  not 
be  easy  for  us  to  conceive  the  power,  over  a  Greek,  of  the 
name  of  Apollo.  But  if,  for  us  also,  as  for  the  Greek,  the 
sunrise  means  daily  restoration  to  the  sense  of  passionate 
gladness  and  of  perfect  life — if  it  means  the  thrilling  of 
new  strength  through  every  nerve, — the  shedding  over  us 
of  a  better  peace  than  the  peace  of  night,  in  the  power  of 
the  datvn, — and  the  purging  of  evil  vision  and  fear  by  the- 

baptism  of  its  dew  ; — if  the  sun  itself  is  an  influence,  to  us 

1* 


10  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   ALB. 

also,  of  spiritual  good — and  becomes  thus  in  reality  ^  not  in 
imagination,  to  us  also,  a  spiritual  power, — we  may  then 
soon  over-pass  the  narrow  limit  of  conception  which  kept 
that  power  impersonal,  and  rise  with  the  Greek  to  the 
thought  of  an  angel  who  rejoiced  as  a  strong  man  to  run 
his  course,  whose  voice,  calling  to  life  and  to  labour,  rang 
round  the  earth,  and  whose  going  forth  was  to  the  ends  of 
heaven. 

9.  The  time,  then,  at  which  I  shall  take  up  for  you,  as 
well  as  I  can  decipher  it,  the  tradition  of  the  Qods  of 
Greece,  shall  be  near  the  beginning  of  its  central  and 
formed  faith, — about  500  b.c, — a  faith  of  which  the  char- 
acter is  perfectly  represented  by  Pindar  and  ^Eschylus, 
who  are  both  of  them  outspokenly  religious,  and  entirely 
sincere  men ;  while  we  may  always  look  back  to  find  the 
less  developed  thought  of  the  preceding  epoch  given  by 
Homer,  in  a  more  occult,  subtle,  half-instinctive  and  invol- 
untary way. 

10.  Now,  at  that  culminating  period  of  the  Greek  re- 
ligion we  find,  under  one  governing  Lord  of  all  things, 
four  subordinate  elemental  forces,  and  four  spiritual . 
powers  living  in  them,  and  commanding  them.  The 
elements  are  of  course  the  well-known  four  of  the  an- 
cient world — the  earth,  the  waters,  the  fire,  and  the 
air ;  and  the  living  powers  of  them  are  Demeter,  the  Latin 
Oeres ;  Poseidon,  the  Latin  Neptune ;  Apollo,  who  haa 
retained  always  his  Greek  name;  and  Athena,  the  Latin 
Minerva.  Each  of  these  are  descended  from,  or  changed 
from,  more  ancient,  and  therefore  more  mystic  deities  of 


ATHENA  EST  THE  HEAVENS.  11 

the  earth  and  heaven,  and  of  a  finer  element  of  set  her 
supposed  to  he  beyond  the  heavens ;  *  but  at  this  time  we 
find  the  four  quite  definite,  both  in  their  kingdoms  and  in 
their  personalities.  They  are  the  rulers  of  the  earth  that 
we  tread  upon,  and  the  air  that  we  breathe  ;  and  are  witb 
us  as  closely,  in  their  vivid  humanity,  as  the  dust  that 
they  animate,  and  the  winds  that  they  bridle.  I  shall 
briefly  define  for  you  the  range  of  their  separate  dominions, 
and  then  follow,  as  far  as  we  have  time,  the  most  interest- 
ing of  the  legends  which  relate  to  the  queen  of  the  air. 

11.  The  rule  of  the  first  spirit,  Demeter,  the  earth 
mother,  is  over  the  earth,  first,  as  the  origin  of  all  life — - 
the  dust  from  whence  we  were  taken :  secondly,  as  the 
receiver  of  all  things  back  at  last  into  silence — "Dust 
thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return."  And,  there- 
Jbre,  as  the  most  tender  image  of  this  appearing  and 
fading  life,  in  the  birth  and  fall  of  flowers,  her  daughter 
Proserpine  plays  in  the  fields  of  Sicily,  and  thence  is  torn 
away  into  darkness,  and  becomes  the  Queen  of  Fate — not 
merely  of  death,  but  of  the  gloom  which  closes  over  and 
ends,  not  beauty  only,  but  sin ;  and  chiefly  of  sins  the  sin 
against  the  life  she  gave:  so  that  she  is,  in  her  highest 
power,  Persephone,  the  avenger  and  purifier  of  blood, — 
•'  The  voice  of  thy  brother's  blood  cries  to  me  out  of  the 
ground."  Then,  side  by  side  with  this  queen  of  the  earth, 
we  find  a  demigod  of  agriculture  by  the  plough — the  lord 
of  grain,  or  of  the  thing  ground  by  the  mill.     And  it  is  3 

*  I  nd  by  modern  science  now  also  asserted,  and  with  probability  a* 
fcued,  to  exist. 


12  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIR. 

singular  proof  of  the  simplicity  of  Greek  character  at  tliis 
noble  time,  that  of  all  representations  left  to  us  of  their 
deities  by  their  art,  few  are  so  frequent,  and  none  perhaps 
so  beautiful,  as  the  symbol  of  this  spirit  of  agriculture. 

12.  Then  the  dominant  spirit  of  the  element  of  water 
is  Neptune,  but  subordinate  to  him  are  myriads  of  other 
water  spirits,  of  whom  Nereus  is  the  chief,  with  Palaemon, 
and  Leucothea,  the  "  white  lady  "  of  the  sea;  and  Thetis, 
and  nymphs  innumerable,  who,  like  her,  could  "suffer  a 
sea  change,"  while  the  river  deities  had  each  independent 
power,  according  to  the  preciousness  of  their  streams  to  the 
cities  fed  by  them, — the  "fountain  Arethuse,  and  thou, 
honored  flood,  smooth  sliding  Mincius,  crowned  with  vocal 
reeds."  And,  spiritually,  this  king  of  the  waters  is  lord 
of  the  strength  and  daily  flow  of  human  life — he  gives  it 
material  force  and  victory ;  which  is  the  meaning  of  the 
dedication  of  the  hair,  as  the  sign  of  the  strength  of  life, 
to  the  river  of  the  native  land. 

13.  Demeter,  then,  over  the  earth,  and  its  giving  and 
receiving  of  life.  Neptune  over  the  waters,  and  the  flow 
and  force  of  life, — always  among  the  Greeks  typified  by 
the  horse,  which  was  to  them  as  a  crested  sea- wave,  ani- 
mated and  bridled.  Then  the  third  element,  fire,  has  set 
over  it  two  powers:  over  earthly  fire,  the  assistant  of  hu- 
man labour,  is  set  Hephaestus,  lord  of  all  labour  in  which 
is  the  flush  and  the  sweat  of  the  brow ;  and  over  heavenly 
fire,  the  source  of  day,  is  set  Apollo,  the  spirit  of  all  kin- 
dling,  purifying,    and  illuminating  intellectual  wisdom 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  13 

each  of  these  gods  having  also  their  subordinate  or  associ- 
ated powers — servant,  or  sister,  or  companion  muse. 

14.  Then,  lastly,  we  come  to  the  myth  which  is  to  be 
our  subject  of  closer  inquiry — the  story  of  Athena  and  ol 
the  deities  subordinate  to  her.  This  great  goddess,  the 
Neith  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Athena  or  Athenaia  of  the 
Greeks,  and,  with  broken  power,  half  usurped  by  Mars, 
the  Minerva  of  the  Latins,  is,  physically,  the  queen  of  the 
air ;  having  supreme  power  both  over  its  blessing  of  calm, 
and  wrath  of  storm ;  and,  spiritually,  she  is  the  queen  of 
the  breath  of  man,  first  of  the  bodily  breathing  which  is 
life  to  his  blood,  and  strength  to  his  arm  in  battle ;  and 
then  of  the  mental  breathing,  or  inspiration,  which  is  his 
moral  health  and  habitual  wisdom;  wisdom  of  conduct 
and  of  the  heart,  as  opposed  to  the  wisdom  of  imagina- 
tion and  the  brain  ;  moral,  as  distinct  from  intellectual ; 
inspired,  as  distinct  from  illuminated. 

15.  By  a  singular,  and  fortunate,  though  I  believe 
wholly  accidental  coincidence,  the  heart-virtue,  of  which 
Bhe  is  the  spirit,  was  separated  by  the  ancients  into  four 
divisions,  which  have  since'  obtained  acceptance  from  all 
men  as  rightly  discerned,  and  have  received,  as  if  from  the 
quarters  of  the  four  winds  of  which  Athena  is  the  natural 
queen,  the  name  of  "Cardinal"  virtues:  namely,  Pru- 
dence, (the  right  seeing,  and  foreseeing,  of  events  through 
darkness) ;  Justice,  (the  righteous  bestowal  of  favour  and 
of  indignation) ;  Fortitude,  (patience  under  trial  by  pain) ; 
and  Temperance,  (patience  under  trial  by  pleasure) 
With   respect   to   these   four   virtues,  the    attributes   of 


14  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIK. 

Athena  are  all  distinct.  In  her  prudence,  or  sight  in 
darkness,  she  is  "  Glaukopis,"  "owl-eyed."*  In  her  jus 
tice,  which  is  the  dominant  virtue,  she  wears  two  robes, 
one  of  light  and  one  of  darkness ;  the  robe  of  light,  saifron 
colour,  or  the  colour  of  the  daybreak,  falls  to  her  feet, 
covering  her  wholly  with  favour  and  love, — the  calm  of 
the  sky  in  blessing  ;  it  is  embroidered  along  its  edge  with 
her  victory  over  the  giants,  (the  troublous  powers  of  the 
earth,)  and  the  likeness  of  it  was  woven  yearly  by  the 
Athenian  maidens  and  carried  to  the  temple  of  their  own 
Athena, — not  to  the  Parthenon,  that  was  the  temple  of 
all  the  world's  Athena, — but  this  they  carried  to  the 
temple  of  their  own  only  one,  who  loved  them,  and  stayed 
with  them  always.  Then  her  robe  of  indignation  is  worn 
on  her  breast  and  left  arm  only,  fringed  with  fatal  ser- 
pents, and  fastened  with  Gorgonian  cold,  turning  men  to 
stone ;  physically,  the  lightning  and  the  hail  of  chastise 
ment  by  storm.  Then  in  her  fortitude  she  wears  the 
crested  and  unstooping  helmet ;  f  and  lastly,  in  her  tem- 
perance, she  is  the  queen  of  maidenhood — stainless  as  the 
air  of  heaven. 

16.  Bat  all  these  virtues  mass  themselves  in  the  Greek 
mind  into  the  two  main  ones — of  Justice,  or  noble  pas- 
sion, and  Fortitude,  or  noble  patience ;  and  of  these,  the 

*  There  are  many  other  meanings  in  the  epithet;  see,  farther  on,  §  91,  p. 
105. 

f  I  am  compelled,  for  clearness'  sake,  to  mark  only  one  neaning  at 
A  time.  Athena's  helmet  is  sometimes  a  mask — sometimes  a  sign  of 
&nger — sometimes  of  the  highest  light  of  aether ;  but  I  cannot  speak  of 
all  this  at  once. 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEAVENS.  35 

chief  powers  of  Athena,  the  Greeks  had  di  Finely  written 
for  them,  and  for  all  men  after  them,  two  mighty  songs,-  - 
one,  of  the  Menis,*  mens,  passion,  or  zeal,  of  Athena, 
breathed  into  a  mortal  whose  name  is  "  Ache  of  heart,'" 
and  whose  short  life  is  only  the  incarnate  brooding  and 
burst  of  storm ;  and  the  other  is  of  the  foresight  and 
fortitude  of  Athena,  maintained  by  her  in  the  heart  of  a 
mortal  whose  name  is  given  to  him  from  a  longer  grief, 
Odysseus,  the  full  of  sorrow,  the  much-enduring,  and  the 
long-suffering. 

17.  The  minor  expressions  by  the  Greeks  in  word,  in 
symbol,  and  in  religious  service,  of  this  faith,  are  so  many 
and  so  beautiful,-  that  I  hope  some  day  to  gather  at  least  a 
few  of  them  into  a  separate  body  of  evidence  respecting 
the  power  of  Athena,  and  its  relations  to  the  ethical 
.conception  of  the  Homeric  poems,  or,  rather,  to  their 
ethical  nature ;  for  they  are  not  conceived  didactically, 
but  are  didactic  in  their  essence,  as  all  good  art  is.  There 
is  an  increasing  insensibility  to  this  character,  and  even 
an  open  denial  of  it,  among  us,  now,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  curious  errors  of  modernism,  —  the  peculiar  and 
judicial  blindness  of  an  age  which,  having  long  practised 
art  and  poetry  for  the  sake  of  pleasure  only,  has  become 
incapable  of  reading  their  language  when  they  were  both 
didactic:  and  also,  having  been  itself  accustomed  to  a 
professedly    didactic    teaching,    which    yet,    for    private 

*  This  first  word  of  the  Iliad,  Menis,  afterwards  passes  into  the  Latin 
Mens;  is  the  root  of  the  Latin  name  for  Athena,  "Minerva,"  and  w 
of  the  English  "mind." 


a6  the  queen  of  the  air 

interests,  studiously  avoids  collision  with  every  prevalent 
vice  of  its  day,  (and  especially  with  avarice),  has  become 
equally  dead  to  the  intensely  ethical  conceptions  of  a  race 
which  habitually  divided  all  men  into  two  broad  classes 
of  worthy  or  worthless ; — good,  and  good  for  nothing. 
And  even  the  celebrated  passage  of  Horace  about  the 
Iliad  is  now  misread  or  disbelieved,  as  if  it  was  impossible 
that  the  Iliad  could  be  instructive  because  it  is  not  like  a 
sermon.  Horace  does  not  say  that  it  is  like  a  sermon,  and 
would  have  been  still  less  likely  to  say  so,  if  he  ever  had 
had  the  advantage  of  hearing  a  sermon.  "  I  have  been 
reading  that  story  of  Troy  again "  (thus  he  writes  to 
a  noble  youth  of  Rome  whom  he  cared  for),  "  quietly  at 
Prseneste,  while  you  have  been  busy  at  Rome;  and  truly 
I  think  that  what  is  base  and  what  is  noble,  and  what 
useful  and  useless,  may  be  better  learned  from  that,  than 
from  all  Chrysippus'  and  Crantor's  talk  put  together."  * 
Which  is  profoundly-true,  not  of  the  Iliad  only,  but  of  all 
other  great  art  whatsoever ;  for  all  pieces  of  such  art  are 
didactic  in  the  purest  way,  indirectly  and  occultly,  so  that, 
first,  you  shall  only  be  bettered  by  them  if  you  are  already 
hard  at  work  in  bettering  yourself;  and  when  you  are  bet- 
tered by  them,  it  shall  be  partly  with  a  general  acceptruic3 
of  their  influence,  so  constant  and  subtle  that  you  shall  be 
no  more  conscious  of  it. than  of  the  healthy  digestion  of 
food ;  and  partly  by  a  gift  of  unexpected  truth,  which  you 

*  Note,  once  for  all,  that  unless  when  there  is  question  about  soms 
particular  expression,  I  never  translate  literally,  but  give  the  real  force 
of  what  is  said,  as  I  best  can,  freely. 


ATHENA    IN    THE    HEAVENS.  17 

shall  only  find  by  slow  mining  for  it ; — which  is  withheld 
on  purpose,  and.  close-locked,  that  you  may  not  get  it  till 
you  have  forged  the  key  of  it  in  a  furnace  of  your  own 
heating.  And  this  withholding  of  their  meaning  is  con- 
tinual, and  confessed,  in  the  great  poets.  Thus  Pindai 
says  of  himself:  "  There  is  many  an  arrow  in  my  quiver, 
full  of  speech  to  the  wise,  but,  for  the  many,  they  need  in- 
terpreters." And  neither  Pindar,  nor  ^Eschylus,  nor 
Hesiod,  nor  Homer,  nor  any  of  the  greater  poets  or 
teachers  of  any  nation  or  time,  ever  spoke  but  with  inten 
tional  reservation :  nay,  beyond  this,  there  is  often  a 
meaning  which  they  themselves  cannot  interpret, — which 
it  may  be  for  ages  long  after  them  to  interpret, — in  what 
they  said,  so  far  as  it  recorded  true  imaginative  vision. 
For  all  the  greatest  myths  have  been  seen,  by  the  men 
who  tell  them,  involuntarily  and  passively, — seen  by  them 
with  as  great  distinctness  (and  in  some  respects,  though 
not  in  all,  under  conditions  as  far  beyond  the  control  of 
their  will)  as  a  dream  sent  to  any  of  us  by  night  when  we 
dream  clearest ;  and  it  is  this  veracity  of  vision  that  could 
not  be  refused,  and  of  moral  that  could  not  be  foreseen, 
which  in  modern  historical  inquiry  has  been  left  wholly 
out  of  account :  being  indeed  the  thing  which  no  merely 
historical  investigator  can  understand,  or  even  believe; 
for  it  belongs  exclusively  to  the  creative  or  artistic  group 
of  men,  and  can  only  be  interpreted  by  those  of  their  race, 
who  themselves  in  some  measure  also  see  visions  and  dream 
dreams. 

So  that  you  may  obtain  a  more  truthful  idea  of  the 


18  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE   AIE. 

nature  of  Greek  religion  and  legend  from  the  poem* 
of  Keats,  and  the  nearly  as  beautiful,  and,  in  general 
grasp  of  subject,  far  more  powerful,  recent  work  of  Morris, 
than  from  frigid  scholarship,  however  extensive.  Not 
that  the  poet's  impressions  or  renderings  of  things  are 
wholly  true,  but  their  truth  is  vital,  not  formal.  They  are 
like  sketches  from  the  life  by  Reynolds  or  Gainsborough, 
which  may  be  demonstrably  inaccurate  or  imaginary  in 
many  traits,  and  indistinct  in  others,  yet  will  be  in  the 
deepest  sense  like,  and  true ;  while  the  work  of  historical 
analysis  is  too  often  weak  with  loss,  through  the  very 
labour  of  its  miniature  touches,  or  useless  in  clumsy  and 
vapid  veracity  of  externals,  and  complacent  security  of 
having  done  all  that  is  required  for  the  portrait,  when  it 
has  measured  the  breadth  of  the  forehead,  and  the  length 
of  the  nose. 

18.  The  first  of  requirements,  then,  for  the  right  read- 
ing of  myths,  is  the  understanding  of  the  nature  of  all 
true  vision  by  noble  persons ;  namely,  that  it  is  founded 
on  constant  laws  common  to  all  human  nature ;  that  it 
perceives,  however  darkly,  things  which  are  fur  all  ages 
true  ; — that  we  can  only  understand  it  so  far  as  we  have 
some  perception  of  the  same  truth  ; — and  that  its  fulnesa 
is  developed  and  manifested  more  and  more  by  the  rever- 
beration of  it  from  minds  of  the  same  mirror-temper,  in 
eucceeding  ages.  You  will  understand  Homer  better  by 
seeing  his  reflection  in  Dante,  as  you  may  trace  new  formi 
and  softer  colours  in  a  hill-side,  redoubled  by  a  lake. 

I  shall  be  able  partly  to  show  you,  even  to-night,  Jiov? 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEAVENS.  19 

much,  in  the  Homeric  vision  of  Athena,  has  been  made 
clearer  by  the  advance  of  time,  being  thus  essentially  arid 
eternally  true;  but  I  must  in  the  outset  indicate  the  rela- 
tion to  that  central  thought  of  the  imagery  of  the  inferioi 
deities  of  storm. 

19.  And  first  I  will  take  the  myth  of  ^Eolus,  (the  "  sage 
Hippotades  "  of  Milton,)  as  it  is  delivered  pure  by  Homer 
from  the  early  times. 

Why  do  you  suppose  Milton  calls  him  "  sage  ? "  One 
does  not  usually  think  of  the  winds  as  very  thoughtful  or 
deliberate  powers.  But  hear  Homer :  "  Then  we  came 
to  the  ^Eolian  island,  and  there  dwelt  JEolus  Hippotades, 
dear  to  the  deathless  gods :  there  he  dwelt  in  a  floating 
island,  and  round  it  was  a  wall  of  brass  that  could  not  be 
broken  ;  and  the  smooth  rock  of  it  ran  up  sheer.  To  whom 
twelve  children  were  born  in  the  sacred  chambers — six 
daughters  and  six  strong  sons ;  and  they  dwell  for  ever 
with  their  beloved  father,  and  their  mother  strict  in  duty ; 
and  with  them  are  laid  up  a  thousand  benefits;  and  the 
misty  house  around  them  rings  with  fluting  all  the  day 
long."  Now,  you  are  to  note  first,  in  this  description,  the 
wall  of  brass  and  the  sheer  rock.  You  will  find,  through- 
out the  fables  of  the  tempest-group,  that  the  brazen  wall 
and  precipice  (occurring  in  aDOther  myth  as  the  brazen 
tower  of  Danae)  are  always  connected  with  the  idea  of  the 
towering  cloud  lighted  by  the  sun,  here  truly  described  aa 
a  floating  island.  Secondly,  you  hear  that  all  treasuree 
were  laid  up  in  them  ;  therefore,  you  know  this  iEolus  is 
lord  of  the  beneficent  winds  ("  he  bringeth  the  win  1  out 


20  THE   QUEE^T   OF   THE   AIR. 

of  his  treasuries  ")  ;  and  presently  afterwards  Homer  ca(lt» 
him  the  "  steward  "  of  the  winds,  the  master  of  the  store- 
house of  them.  And  this  idea  of  gifts  and  preciousness  in 
the  winds  of  heaven  is  carried  out  in  the  well-known 
Bequel  of  the  fable  : — ^Eolus  gives  them  to  Ulysses,  all  but 
one,  bound  in  leathern  bags,  with  a  glittering  cord  of 
silver ;  and  so  like  bags  of  treasure  that  the  sailors  think 
they  are  so,  and  open  them  to  see.  And  when  Ulysses  is 
thus  driven  back  to  ^Eolus,  and  prays  him  again  to  help 
him,  note  the  deliberate  words  of  the  King's  refusal, — 
"  Did  I  not,"  he  says,  "  send  thee  on  thy  way  heartily,  that 
tBou  mightest  reach  thy  country,  thy  home,  and  whatever 
is  dear  to  thee?  It  is  not  lawful  for  me  again  to  send  forth 
favourably  on  his  journey  a  man  hated  by  the  happy  gods." 
This  idea  of  the  beneficence  of  ^Eolus  remains  to  the  latest 
times,  though  Virgil,  by  adopting  the  vulgar  change  of  the 
cloud  island  into  Lipari,  has  lost  it  a  little ;  but  even  when 
it  is  finally  explained  away  by  Diodorus,  ^Eolus  is  still  a 
kind-hearted  monarch,  who  lived  on  the  coast  of  Sorrento, 
invented  the  use  of  sails,  and  established  a  system  of  storm 
signals. 

20.  Another  beneficent  storm-power,  Boreas,  occupies 
an  important  place  in  early  legend,  and  a  singularly  prin- 
cipal one  in  art ;  and  I  wish  I  could  read  to  you  a  passage 
of  Plato  about  the  legend  of  Boreas  and  Oreithyia,*  and 
the  breeze  and  shade  of  the  Uissus — notwithstanding  itg 

*  Translated  by  Max  Miiller  in  the  opening  of  his  essay  on  '  Com 
parativo  My thology. ' '     {Chips  from  a  German  Workxliop^  vol.  ii.) 


ATHENA    EST   THE    HEAVENS.  21 

severe  reflection  upon  persons  who  waste  their  time  on 
mythological  studies:  but  I  must  go  on  at  once  to  the 
fable  with  which  you  are  all  generally  familiar,  that  of 
the  Harpies. 

This  is  always  connected  with  that  of  Boreas  or  the 
north  wind,  because  the  two  sons  of  Boreas  are  enemies  of 
the  Harpies,  and  drive  them  away  into  frantic  flight.  The 
myth  in  its  first  literal  form  means  only  the  battle  between 
the  fair  north  wind  and  the  foul  south  one :  the  two 
Harpies,  "  Stormswift  "  and  "  Swiftfoot,"  are  the  sisters 
of  the  rainbow — that  is  to  say,  they  are  the  broken  drifts 
of  the  showery  south  wind,  and  the  clear  north  wind  drives 
them  back ;  but  they  quickly  take  a  deeper  and  more 
malignant  significance.  You  know  the  short,  violent, 
spiral  gusts  that  lift  the  dust  before  coming  rain  :  the 
Harpies  get  identified  first  with  these,  and  then  with  more 
violent  whirlwinds,  and  so  they  are  called  "  Harpies," 
"  the  Snatchers,"  and  are  thought  of  as  entirely  destruc- 
tive ;  their  manner  of  destroying  being  twofold — by  snatch- 
ing away,  and  by  defiling  and  polluting.  This  is  a  month 
in  which  you  may  really  see  a  small  Harpy  at  her  work 
almost  whenever  you  choose.  The  first  time  that  there  is 
threatening  of  rain  after  two  or  three  days  of  fine  weather, 
leave  your  window  well  open  to  the  street,  and  some  books 
or  papers  on  the  table  ;  and  if  you  donot,in  a  little  while, 
Know  what  the  Harpies  mean  ;  and  how  they  snatch,  and 
how  they  defile,  I'll  give  up  rry  Greek  myths. 

21.  That  is    the  physical   meaning.     It   is    now   easy 
to  find    the   mental  one.     You  must   all  have  felt  the 


22  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIE. 

expression  of  ignoble  anger  in  those  fitful  gusts  of  sudder. 
Btorm.  There  is  a  sense  of  provocation  and  apparent 
bitterness  of  purpose  in  their  thin  and  senseless  fury, 
wholly  different  from  the  noble  anger  of  the  greater  tem- 
pests. Also,  they  seem  useless  and  unnatural,  and  the 
Greek  thinks  of  them  always  as  vile  in  malice,  and  opposed, 
therefore,  to  the  sons  of  Boreas,  who  are  kindly  winds, 
that  fill  sails,  and  wave  harvests, — full  of  bracing  health 
and  happy  impulses.  From  this  lower  and  merely  mali- 
cious temper,  the  Harpies  rise  into  a  greater  terror,  always 
associated  with  their  whirling  motion,  which  is  indeed 
indicative  of  the  most  destructive  winds:  and  they  are 
thus  related  to  the  nobler  tempests,  as  Charybdis  to  the 
Bea  ;  they  are  devouring  and  desolating,  merciless,  making 
all  things  disappear  that  come  in  their  grasp :  and  so, 
spiritually,  they  are  the  gusts  of  vexatious,  fretful,  lawlesa 
passion,  vain  and  overshadowing,  discontented  and  lament- 
ing, meagre  and  insane, — spirits  of  wasted  energy,  and 
wandering  disease,  and  unappeased  famine,  and  unsatis- 
fied hope.  So  you  have,  on  the  one  side,  the  winds  of 
prosperity  and  health,  on  the  other,  of  ruin  and  sickness. 
Understand  that,  once,  deeply — any  who  have  ever  known 
the  weariness  of  vain  desires  ;  the  pitiful,  unconquerable, 
coiling  and  recoiling  and  self-involved  returns  of  some 
sickening  famine  and  thirst  of  heart : — and  you  will  know 
what  was  in  the  sound  of  the  Harpy  Celaeno's  shriek  from 
her  rock  ;  and  why,  in  the  seventh  circle  of  the  "  Inferno,'' 
the  Harpies  make  their  nests  in  the  warped  branches  of 
the  trees  that  are  the  souls  of  suicides. 


ATHENA    IN    THE   HEAVENS.  23 

22.  Now  you  must  always  be  prepared  to  read  Greek 
legends  as  you  trace  threads  through  figures  on  a  silken 
damask  :  the  same  thread  runs  through  the  web,  but  it 
makes  part  of  different  figures.  Joined  with  othen- eoloura 
you  hardly  recognize  it,  and  in  different  lights,  it  is  dark 
or  light.  Thus  the  Greek  fables  blend  and  cross  curiously 
in  different  directions,  till  they  knit  themselves  into  an 
arabesque  where  sometimes  you  cannot  tell  black  from 
purple,  nor  blue  from  emerald — they  being  all  the  truer 
for  this,  because  the  truths  of  emotion  they  represent  are 
interwoven  in  the  same  way,  but  all  the  more  difficult  to 
read,  and  to  explain  in  any  order.  Thus  the  Harpies,  as 
they  represent  vain  desire,  are  connected  with  the  Sirens, 
who  are  the  spirits  of  constant  desire :  so  that  it  is  difficult 
sometimes  in  early  art  to  know  which  are  meant,  both 
being  represented  alike  as  birds  with  women's  heads  ;  only 
the  Sirens  are  the  great  constant  desires — the  infinite  sick- 
nesses of  heart — which,  rightly  placed,  give  life,  and 
wrongly  placed,  waste  it  away;  so  that  there  are  two 
groups  of  Sirens,  one  noble  and  saving,  as  the  other  is 
fatal.  But  there  are  no  animating  or  saving  Harpies  ; 
their  nature  is  always  vexing  and  full  of  weariness,  and 
thus  they  are  curiously  connected  with  the  whole  group  of 
legends  about  Tantalus. 

23.  We  all  know  what  it  is  to  be  tantalized  ;  but  we  do 
Dot  often  think  of  asking  what  Tantalus  was  tantalized 
for — what  he  had  done,  to  be  for  ever  kept  hungry  in  sight 
of  food  ?  Well ;  he  had  not  been  condemned  to  this  mere 
ly  for  being  a  glutton.     By  Dante  the  same  punishment  ii 


24  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE   AIR. 

assigned  to  simple  gluttony,  to  purge  it  away  ; — but  th« 
sins  of  Tantalus  were  of  a  much  wider  and  more  mysterious 
kind.  There  are  four  great  sins  attributed  to  him — one, 
stealing  the  food  of  the  Gods  to  give  it  to  men  ;  another, 
sacrificing  his  son  to  feed  the  Gods  themselves,  (it  may 
remind  you  for  a  moment  of  what  I  was  telling  you  of  the 
earthly  character  of  Demeter,  that,  while  the  other  Goda 
all  refuse,  she,  dreaming  about  her  lost  daughter,  eats  part 
of  the  shoulder  of  Pelops  before  she  knows  what  she  is 
doing) ;  another  sin  is,  telling  the  secrets  of  the  Gods  ,- 
and  only  the  fourth — stealing  the  golden  dog  of  Pandareos 
— is  connected  with  gluttony.  The  special  sense  of  this 
myth  is  marked  by  Pandareos  receiving  the  happy  privi- 
lege of  never  being  troubled  with  indigestion;  the  dog,  in 
general,  however,  mythically  represents  all  utterly  sense- 
less and  carnal  desires ;  mainly  that  of  gluttony ;  and  in 
the  mythic  sense  of  Hades — that  is  to  say,  so  far  as  it 
represents  spiritual  ruin  in  this  life,  and  not  a  literal  hell — 
the  dog  Cerberus  is  its  gate-keeper — with  this  special 
marking  of  his  character  of  sensual  passion,  that  he  fawns 
on  all  those  who  descend,  but  rages  against  all  who  would 
return,  (the  Tirgilian  "  facilis  descensus  "  being  a  later 
recognition  of  this  mythic  character  of  Hades :)  the  last 
labour  of  Hercules  is  the  dragging  him  up  to  the  light  ; 
and  in  some  sort,  he  represents  the  voracity  or  devouring 
of  Hades  itself;  and  the  mediaeval  representation  of  the 
mouth  of  hell  perpetuates  the  same  thought.  Then,  also, 
the  power  of  evil  passion  is  partly  associated  with  the  red 
and  scorching  light  of  Sirius,  as  opposed  to  the  pure  light 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEAVENS.  25 

oi  the  sun  : — be  is  the  dog-star  of  ruin  ;  and  hence  the 
continual  Homeric  dwelling  upon  him,  and  comparison  oi 
the  flame  of  anger  to  his  swarthy  light  ;  only,  in  his 
scorching,  it  is  thirst,  not  hunger,  over  which  he  rules 
physically  ;  so  that  the  fable  of"  Icarius,  his  first  master, 
corresponds,  among  the  Greeks,  to  the  legend  of  the  drunk- 
enness of  Noah. 

The  story  of  Actseon,  the  raging  death  of  Hecuba,  and 
the  tradition  of  the  white  dog  which  ate  part  of  Hercules' 
first  sacrifice,  and  so  gave  name  to  the  Cynosarges,  are  all 
various  phases  of  the  same  thought — the  Greek  notion  of 
the  dog  being  throughout  confused  between  its  serviceable 
fidelity,  its  watchfulness,  its  foul  voracity,  shamelessness, 
and  deadly  madness,  while,  with  the  curious  reversal  or 
recoil  of  the  meaning  which  attaches  itself  to  nearly  every 
great  myth — and  which  we  shall  presently  see  notably 
exemplified  in  the  relations  of  the  serpent  to  Athena, — the 
dog  becomes  in  philosophy  a  type  of  severity  and  absti- 
nence, 

24.  It  would  carry  us  too  far  aside  were  I  to  tell  you 
the  story  of  Pandareos'  dog— or  rather,  of  Jupiter's  dog, 
for  Pandareos  was  its  guardian  only;  all  that  bears  on  our 
present  purpose  is  that  the  guardian  of  this  golden  dog  had 
three  daughters,  one  of  whom  was  subject  to  the  power  of 
the  Sirens,  and  is  turned  into  the  nightingale;  and  the 
other  two  were  subject  to  the  power  of  the  Harpies,  and 
this  was  what  happened  to  them.  They  were  very  beau- 
tiful, and  they  were  beloved  by  the  gods  in  their  youth, 
and  all  the  great  goddesses  were  anxious  to  bring  them  up 


2()  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

rightly.  Of  all  types  of  young  ladies'  education,  there  ia 
nothing  so  splendid  as  that  of  the  younger  daughters  of 
Pandareos.  They  have  literally  the  four  greatest  god 
desses  for  their  governesses.  Athena  teaches  them  domes- 
tic accomplishments;  how  t2  weave,  and  sew,  and  the 
like;  Artemis  teaches  them  to  hold  themselves  up  straight; 
Hera,  how  to  behave  proudly  and  oppressively  to  com- 
pany; and  Aphrodite — delightful  governess — feeds  them 
with  cakes  and  honey  all  day  long.  All  goes  well,  until 
just  the  time  when  they  are  going  to  be  brought  out; 
then  there  is  a  great  dispute  whom  they  are  to  marry,  and 
in  the  midst  of  it  they  are  carried  off  by  the  Harpies, 
given  by  them  to  be  slaves  to  the  Furies,  and  never  seen 
more.  But  of  course  there  is  nothing  in  Greek  myths; 
and  one  never  heard  of  such  things  as  vain  desires,  and 
empty  hopes,  and  clouded  passions,  defiling  and  snatching 
away  the  souls  of  maidens,  in  a  London  season. 

I  have  no  time  to  trace  for  you  any  more  harpy  legends, 
though  they  are  full  of  the  most  curious  interest;  but  I 
may  confirm  for  you  my  interpretation  of  this  one,  and 
prove  its  importance  in  the  Greek  mind,  by  noting  that 
Polygnotus  painted  these  maidens,  in  his  great  religious 
series  of  paintings  at  Delphi,  crowned  with  flowers,  and 
playing  at  dice;  and  that  Penelope  remembers  them  in 
her  last  fit  of  despair,  just  before  the  return  of  Ulysses 
and  prays  bitterly  that  she  may  be  snatched  away  at  once 
into  nothingness  by  the  Harpies,  like  Pandareos'  daugh- 
ters, rather  than  be  tormented  longer  by  her  deferred 
hope,  and  anguish  of  disappointed  love. 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEAVENS.  27 

25.  I  have  hitherto  spoken  only  of  deities  of  the  winds. 
We  pass  now  to  a  far  more  important  group,  the  Deities 
of  Cloud.  Both  of  these  are  subordinate  to  the  ruling 
powei  of  the  air,  as  the  demigods  of  the  fountains  and 
minor  seas  are  to  the  great  deep:  but,  as  the  cloud-firma- 
ment detaches  itself  more  from  the  air,  and  has  a  wider 
range  of  ministry  than  the  minor  streams  and  seas,  the 
highest  cloud  deity,  Hermes,  has  a  rank  more  equal  with 
Athena  than  Nereus  or  Proteus  with  Neptune;  and  there 
is  greater  difficulty  in  tracing  his  character,  because  his 
physical  dominion  over  the  clouds  can,  of  course,  be  assert- 
ed only  where  clouds  are;  and,  therefore,  scarcely  at  all  in 
Egypt:*  so  that  the  changes  which  Hermes  undergoes  in 
becoming  a  Greek  from  an  Egyptian  and  Phoenician  god, 
are  greater  than  in  any  other  case  of  adopted  tradition. 
In  Egypt  Hermes  is  a  deity  of  historical  record,  and  a  con- 
ductor of  the  dead  to  judgment ;  the  Greeks  take  away 
much  of  this  historical  function,  assigning  it  to  the  Muses; 
but,  in  investing  him  with  the  physical  power  over  clouds, 
they  give  him  that  which  the  Muses  disdain,  thepower  of 
concealment,  and  of  theft.     The  snatching  away  by  the 

*  I  believe  that  the  conclusions  of  recent  scholarship  are  generally 
opposed  to  the  Herodotean  ideas  of  any  direct  acceptance  by  the  Greeks 
of  Egyptian  myths :  and  very  certainly,  Greek  art  is  developed  by  giving 
the  veracity  and  simplicity  of  real  life  to  Eastern  savage  grotesque  ;  and 
not  by  softening  the  severity  of  pure  Egyptian  design.  But  it  is  of  nc 
consequence  whether  one  conception  was,  or  was  not,  in  this  case, 
derived  from  the  other  •  my  object  is  only  to  mark  the  essential  differ 
ences  between  them. 


28  THE    QUEEN    OF    THE   ATR. 

Harpies  is  with  brute  force  ;  but  the  snatching  away  Irj 
the  clouds  is  connected  with  the  thought  of  hiding,  and  of 
making  things  seem  to  be  what  they  are  not;  so  that 
Hermes  is  the  god  of  lying,  as  he  is  of  mist;  and  yet  with 
this  ignoble  function  of  making  things  vanish  and  disap 
pear,  is  connected  the  remnant  of  his  grand  Egyptian 
authority  of  leading  away  souls  in  the  cloud  of  death  (the 
actual  dimness  of  sight  caused  by  mortal  wounds  physi- 
cally suggesting  the  darkness  and  descent  of  clouds,  and 
continually  being  so  described  in  the  Iliad);  while  the 
sense  of  the  need  of  guidance  on  the  untrodden  road  fol- 
lows necessarily.  You  cannot  but  remember  how  this 
thought  of  cloud  guidance,  and  cloud  receiving  of  souls  at 
death,  has  been  elsewhere  ratified. 

26.  Without  following  that  higher  clue,  I  will  pass  to 
the  lovely  group  of  myths  connected  with  the  birth  of 
Hermes  on  the  Greek  mountains.  Tou  know  that  the 
valley  of  Sparta  is  one  of  the  noblest  mountain  ravines  in 
the  world,  and  that  the  western  flank  of  it  is  formed  by  an 
unbroken,  chain  of  crags,  forty  miles  long,  rising,  opposite 
Sparta,  to  a  height  of  8,000  feet,  and  known  as  the  chain 
of  Taygetus.  !Now,  the  nymph  from  whom  that  moun- 
tain ridge  is  named,  was  the  mother  of  Lacedaemon  ;  there- 
fore, the  mythic  ancestress  of  the  Spartan  race.  She  is 
the  nymph  Taygeta,  and  one  of  the  seven  stars  of  spring ; 
one  of  those  Pleiades  of  whom  is  the  question  to  Job, — 
"  Canst  thou  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  Pleiades,  or  loose 
the  bands  of  Orion  %  "  "  The  sweet  influences  of  Pleiades," 
of  the  stars  of  spring, — nowhere  sweeter  than  among  the 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  29 

pine-clad  slopes  of  the  liills  of  Sparta  and  Arcadia,  when 
the  snows  of  their  higher  summits,  beneath  the  sunshine 
of  April,  fell  into  fountains,  and  rose  into  clouds  ;  and  in 
every  ravine  was  a  newly-awakened  voice  of  waters, — 
eolt  increase  of  whisper  among  its  sacred  stones  :  and  on 
every  crag  its  forming  and  fading  veil  of  radiant  cloud; 
temple  above  temple,  of  the  divine  marble  that  no  tool  can 
pollute,  nor  ruin  undermine.  And,  therefore,  beyond  this 
central  valley,  this  great  Greek  vase  of  Arcadia,  on  the  "/W- 
low"  mountain,  Cyllene,  or  "  pregnant"  mountain,  called 
also  "  cold,"  because  there  the  vapours  rest,*  and  born  of 
the  eldest  of  those  stars  of  spring,  that  Maia,  from  whom 
your  own  month  of  May  has  its  name,  bringing  to  you,  in 
the  green  of  her  garlands,  and  the  white  of  her  hawthorn, 
the  unrecognized  symbols  of  the  pastures  and  the  wreathed 
snows  of  Arcadia,  where  long  ago  she  was  queen  of  stars  : 
there,  first  cradled  and  wrapt  in  swaddling-clothes  ;  then 
raised,  in  a  moment  of  surprise,  into  his  wandering  power, — 
is  born  the  shepherd  of  the  clouds,  winged-footed  and 
deceiving, — blinding  the  eyes  of  Argus, — escaping  from 
the  grasp  of  Apollo — restless  messenger  between  the  high- 
est sky  and  topmost  earth — "  the  herald  Mercury,  new 
lighted  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill." 

27.  Now,  it  will  be  wholly  impossible,  at  present,  to 
trace  for  you  any  of  the  minor  Greek  expressions  of  this 
thought,  except  only  that  Mercury,  as  the  cloud  shepherd, 

*  On  the  altar  of  Hermes  on  its  summit,  as  on  that  of  the  Lacinian 
Hera,  no  wind  ever  stirred  the  ashes.  By  those  altars,  the  Gods  of 
Heaven  were  appeased  ;  and  all  their  storms  at  rest. 


SO  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

is  especially  called  Eriophoros,  the  wool-bearer.  Yon  wit 
recollect  the  name  from  the  common  woolly  rush  "  erio- 
phorum  "  which  has  a  cloud  of  silky  seed ;  and  note  also 
that  he  wears  distinctively  the  flat  cap,  jpetasos,  named 
from  a  word  meaning  to  expand  ;  which  shaded  from  the 
sun,  and  is  worn  on  journeys.  You  have  the  epithet  of 
mountains  "cloud-capped"  as  an  established  form  with 
every  poet,  and  the  Mont  Pilate  of  Lucerne  is  named  from 
a  Latin  word  signifying  specially  a  woollen  cap  ;  but  Mer- 
cury has,  besides,  a  general  Homeric  epithet,  curiously  and 
intensely  concentrated  in  meaning,  "  the  profitable  or  ser- 
viceable by  wool,"  *  that  is  to  say,  by  shepherd  wealth ; 
hence,  "  pecuniarily,"  rich,  or  serviceable,  and  so  he  passes 
at  last  into  a  general  mercantile  deity;  while  yet  the  cloud 
sense  of  the  wool  is  retained  by  Homer  always,  so  that  he 
gives  him  this  epithet  when  it  would  otherwise  have  been 
quite  meaningless,  (in  Iliad,  xxiv.  440,)  wiien  he  drives 
Priam's  chariot,  and  breathes  force  into  his  horses,  pre- 
cisely as  we  shall  find  Athena  drive  Diomed :  and  yet  the 
serviceable  and  profitable  sense, — and  something  also  of 
gentle  and  soothing  character  in  the  mere  wool-softness, 
as  used  for  dress,  and  religious  rites, — is  retained  also  in 
the  epithet,  and  thus  the  gentle  and  serviceable  Hermes  is 
opposed  to  the  deceitful  one. 

*I  am  convinced  that  the  lpt  in  ^  .  i  is  not  intensitive  ;  but 
retained  from  ?«<  ■.  :  but  even  if  I  am  wrong  in  thinking  this,  the  mis- 
take is  of  no  consequence  with  respect  to  the  general  force  of  the  term 
as  meaning  the  profitableness  of  Hermes.  Athena's  epithet  of  dyeXst' 
has  a  parallel  significance. 


ATHENA    m    THE    HEAVENS.  31 

28.  In  connection  with  this  driving  of  Priam's  chariot, 
remember  that  as  Autolycus  is  the  son  of  Hermes  the 
Deceiver,  Myrtilus  (the  Auriga  of  the  Stars)  is  the  son  of 
Hermes  the  Guide.  The  name  Hermes  itself  means 
Impulse ;  and  he  is  especially  the  shepherd  of  the  nocks', 
of  the  sky,  in  driving,  or  guiding,  or  stealing  them ;  and 
yet  his  great  name,  Argeiphontes,  not  only — as  in  differ- 
ent passages  of  the  olden  poets — means  "  Shining  White," 
which  is  said  of  him  as  being  himself  the  silver  cloud 
lighted  by  the  sun ;  but  "  Argus-Killer,"  the  killer  of 
brightness,  which  is  said  of  him  as  he  veils  the  sky,  and 
especially  the  stars,  which  are  the  eyes  of  Argus  ;  or,  lite- 
rally, eyes  of  brightness,  which  Juno,  who  is,  with  Jupiter, 
part  of  the  type  of  highest  heaven,  keeps  in  her  peacock's 
train.  We  know  that  this  interpretation  is  right,  from  a 
.passage  in  which  Euripides  describes  the  shield  of  Hippo- 
medon,  which  bore  for  its  sign,  "  Argus  the  all -seeing,  cov- 
ered with  eyes ;  open  towards  the  rising  of  the  stars,  and 
closed  towards  their  setting." 

And  thus  Hermes  becomes  the  spirit  of  the  movement 
of  the  sky  or  firmament ;  not  merely  the  fast  flying  of  the 
transitory  cloud,  but  the  great  motion  of  the  heavens  and 
stars  themselves.  Thus,  in  his  highest  power,  he  corre- 
sponds to  the  "  primo  mobile"  of  the  later  Italian  philos- 
ophy, and,  in  his  simplest,  is  the  guide  of  all  mysterious 
and  cloudy  movement,  and  of  all  successful  subtleties. 
Perhaps  the  prettiest  minor  recognition  of  his  character 
is  when,  on  the  night  foray  of  Ulysses  and  Diomed,  Ulys- 


32  THE    QCJEEN    OF   THE   AIR. 

ses  wears  the  helmet  stolen    by  Autolycus,  the  son   of 
Hermes. 

29.  The  position  in  the  Greek  mind  of  Hermes  as  tin 
Lord  of  cloud  is,  however,  more  mystic  and  ideal  than 
that  of  any  other  deity,  just  on  account  of  the  constant 
and  real  presence  of  the  cloud  itself  under  different  forms, 
giving  rise  to  all  kinds  of  minor  fables.  The  play  of  the 
Greek  imagination  in  this  direction  is  so  wide  and  com- 
plex, that  I  cannot  even  give  you  an  outline  of  its  range 
in  my  present  limits.  There  is  first  a  great  series  of  storm- 
legends  connected  with  the  family  of  the  historic  ^Eolus, 
centralized  by  the  story  of  Athamas,  with  his  two  wives, 
"the  Cloud"  and  the  "White  Goddess,"  ending  in  that  of 
Phrixus  and  Helle,  and  of  the  golden  fleece  (which  is  only 
the  cloud-burden  of  Hermes  Eriophoros).  With  this, 
there  is  the  fate  of  Salmoneus,  and  the  destruction 
of  Glaucus  by  his  own  horses ;  all  these  minor  myths  of 
storm  concentrating  themselves  darkly  into  the  legend  of 
Bellerophon  and  the  Chimsera,  in  which  there  is  an  under 
story  about  the  vain  subduing-  of  passion  and  treachery, 
and  the  end  of  life  in  fading  melancholy, — which,  I  hope, 
not  many  of  you  could  understand  even  were  I  to  show  it 
you  :  (the  merely  physical  meaning  of  the  Chimsera  is  the 
cloud  of  volcanic  lightning,  connected  wholly  with  earth- 
fire,  but  resembling  the  heavenly  cloud  in  its  height  and 
its  thunder).  Finally,  in  the  ^Eolic  group,  there  is  the 
legend  of  Sisyphus,  which  I  mean  to  work  out  thoroughly 
by  itself:  its  root  is  in  the  position  of  Corinth  as  ruling 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  38 

the  isthmus  and  the  two  seas — the  Corinthian  Acropolis, 
two  thousand  feet  high,  being  the  centre  of  the  crossing 
currents  of  the  winds,  and  of  the  commerce  of  Greece. 
Therefore,  Athena,  and  the  fountain  cloud  Pegasus,  are 
mDre  closely  connected  with  Corinth  than  even  with 
Athens  in  their  material,  though  not  in  their  moral  power ; 
and  Sisyphus  founds  the  Isthmian  games  in  connection 
with  a  melancholy  story  about  the  sea  gods ;  but  he  him- 
self is  xtpSia-roi  «v<fy<w»,  the  most  "gaining"  and  subtle  of 
men ;  who,  having  the  key  of  the  Isthmus,  becomes  the 
type  of  transit,  transfer,  or  trade,  as  such  ;  and  of  the  ap- 
parent gain  from  it,  which  is  not  gain:  and  this  is  the  real 
meaning  of  his  punishment  in  hell — eternal  toil  and  re- 
coil (the  modern  idol  of  capital  being,  indeed,  the  stone  of 
Sisyphus  with  a  vengeance,  crushing  in  its  recoil).  But, 
( throughout,  the  old  ideas  of  the  cloud  power  and  cloud 
feebleness, — the  deceit  of  its  hiding, — and  the  emptiness 
of  its  vanishing, — the  Autolycus  enchantment  of  making 
black  seem  white, — and  the  disappointed  fury  of  Ixion 
(taking  shadow  for  power),,  mingle  in  the  moral  meaning 
of  this  and  its  collateral  legends ;  and  give  an  aspect,  at 
last,  not  only  of  foolish  cunning,  but  of  impiety  or  literal 
"idolatry,"  "imagination  worship,"  to  the  dreams  of  ava- 
rice and  injustice,  until  this  notion  of  atheism  and  indo- 
lent blindness  becomes  principal;  and  the  "Clouds"  of 
Aristophanes,  with  the  personified  "just"  and  "unjust ,1 
sayings  in  the  latter  part  of  the  play,  foreshadow,  almost 
feature  by  feature,  in  all  that  they  were  written  to  mock 

2* 


34:  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE   ATE. 

and  to  chastise,  the  worst  elements  of  the  impious  "  ^T>«s  M 
and  tumult  in  men's  thoughts,  which  have  followed  on 
their  avarice  in  the  present  day,  making  them  alike  forsake 
the  laws  of  their  ancient  gods,  and  misapprehend  or  reject 
the  true  words  of  their  existing  teachers. 

30.  All  this  we  have  from  the  legends  of  the  historic 
^Eolus  only ;  but,  besides  these,  there  is  the  beautiful  story 
of  Semele,  the  Mother  of  Bacchus.  She  is  the  cloud  with 
the  strength  of  the  vine  in  its  bosom,  consumed  by  the 
light  which  matures  the  fruit ;  the  melting  away  of  the 
cloud  into  the  clear  air  at  the  fringe  of  its  edges  being  ex- 
quisitely rendered  by  Pindar's  epithet  for  her,  Semele, 
"with  the  stretched-out  hair"  (rxivihip*).  Then  there  is 
the  entire  tradition  of  the  Danaides,  and  of  the  tower  of 
Darae  and  golden  shower;  the  birth  of  Perseus  connect- 
m.c  this  legend  with  that  of  the  Gordons  and  Graia?,  who 
are  the  true  clouds  of  thunderous  and  ruinous  tempest. 
I  must,  in  passing,  mark  for  you  that  the  form  of  the  sword 
or  sickle  of  Perseus,  with  which  he  kills  Medusa,  is  anoth- 
er image  of  the  whirling  harpy  vortex,  and  belongs  espe- 
cially to  the  sword  of  destruction  or  annihilation  ;  whence 
it  is  given  to  the  two  angels  who  gather  for  destruction 
the  evil  harvest  and  evil  vintage  of  the  earth  (Rev.  xiv.  15). 
I  will  collect  afterwards  and  complete  what  I  have  already 
written  respecting  the  Pegasean  and  Gorgonian  legends, 
noting  here  only  what  is  necessary  to  explain  the  central 
myth  of  Athena  herself,  who  represents  the  ambient  air, 
which  included  all  cloud,  and  rain,  and  dew,  and  dark 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  35 

ness,  and  peace,  and  wrath  of  heaven.  Let  me  now  try  to 
give  you,  however  briefly,  some  distinct  idea  of  the  several 
agencies  of  this  great  goddess. 

31.  I.  She   is  the  air  giving  life  and    health    to    all 

animals. 
II.  She  is  the  air  giving  vegetative   power   to  the 
earth. 
IIL  She  is  the  air  giving  motion  to  the  sea,  and  ren- 
dering navigation  possible. 
IY.  She  is  the  air  nourishing  artificial  light,  torch  or 
lamplight ;  as  opposed  to  that  of  the  sun,  on 
one  hand,  and  of  consuming  *  fire  on  the  other. 
Y.  She  is  the  air  conveying  vibration  of  sound. 
I  will  give  you  instances  of  her  agency  in   all  these 
functions. 

32.  First,  and  chiefly,  she  is  air  as  the  spirit  of  life, 
giving  vitality  to  the  blood.  Her  psychic  relation  to  the 
vital  force  in  matter  lies  deeper,  and  we  will  examine  it 
afterwards  ;  but  a  great  number  of  the  most  interesting 
passages  in  Homer  regard  her  as  flying  over  the  earth  in 
local  and  transitory  strength,  simply  and  merely  the  god- 
dess of  fresh  air. 

It  is  curious  that  the  British  city  which  has  somewhat 
Bancily  styled  itself  the  Modern  Athens,  is  indeed  more 
under  her  especial  tutelage  and  favour  in  this  respect  than 
perhaps  any  other  town  in  the  island.  Athena  is  first 
simply  what   in   the  Modern    Athens    you   so   practically 

*  No  fc  a  scientific,  but  a  very  practical  and  expressive  distinct  ion. 


36  THE    QUEEN   OF    THE   ATB. 

find  her,  the  breeze  of  the  mountain  and  the  sea ;   anc 

wherever  she  comes,  there  is  purification,  and  health,  and 
power.  The  sea-beach  round  this  isle  of  ours  is  the  frieze 
of  our  Parthenon  ;  every  wave  that  breaks  on  it  thunders 
with  Athena's  voice  ;  nay,  whenever  you  throw  your  win- 
dow wide  open  in  the  morning,  you  let  in  Athena,  as  wis- 
dom and  fresh  air  at  the  same  instant ;  and  whenever  you 
draw  a  pure,  long,  full  breath  of  right  heaven,  you  take 
Athena  into  your  heart,  through  your  blood ;  and,  with 
the  blood,  into  the  thoughts  of  your  brain. 

Now  this  giving  of  strength  by  the  air,  observe,  is 
mechanical  as  wTell  as  chemical.  You  cannot  strike  a 
good  blow  but  with  your  chest  full ;  and  in  hand  to  hand 
lighting,  it  is  not  the  muscle  that  fails  first,  it  is  the  breath; 
the  longest-breathed  will,  on  the  average,  be  the  victor,— 
not  the  strongest.  Note  how  Shakspeare  always  leans  on 
this.  Of  Mortimer,  in  "  changing  hardiment  with  great 
Glendower : " — 

"  Three  times  they  breathed,  and  three  times  did  they  drink, 
Upon  agreement,  of  swift  Severn's  flood."  • 

And  again,  Hotspur  sending  challenge  to  Prince  Harry: — 
"  That  none  might  draw  short  breath  to-day 
But  I  and  Harry  Monmouth." 
Ao;ain,  of  Hamlet,  before  he  receives  his  wound  : — 

■  "He's  fat,  and  scant  of  breath." 
A.gain,  Orlando  in  the  wrestling  : — 

"  Yes ;  I  beseech  your  grace 
I  am  not  yet  well  breathed." 

Now  of  all  people  that  ever  lived,  the  Greeks  knev  Wtft 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  37 

what  breath  meant,  both  in  exercise  and  in  battle ,  and 
therefore  the  queen  of  the  air  becomes  to  them  at  once  the 
queen  of  bodily  strength  in  war ;  not  mere  brutal  mus- 
cular strength, — that  belongs  to  Ares, — but  the  strength 
of  young  lives  passed  in  pure  air  and  swift  exercise, — 
Camilla's  virginal  force,  that  "  flies  o'er  the  unbending 
corn,  and  skims  along  the  main." 

33.  Now  I  will  rapidly  give  you  two  or  three  instances 
of  her  direct  agency  in  this  function.  First,  when  she 
wants  to  make  Penelope  bright  and  beautiful ;  and  to  do 
away  with  the  signs  of  her  waiting  and  her  grief.  "  Then 
Athena  thought  of  another  thing;  she  laid  her  into  deep 
sleep,  and  loosed  all  her  limbs,  and  made  her  taller,  and 
made  her  smoother,  and  fatter,  and  whiter  than  sawn 
ivory;  and  breathed  ambrosial  brightness  over  her  face; 
and  so  she  left  her  and  went  up  to  heaven."  Fresh  air 
and  sound  sleep  at  night,  young  ladies  !  You  see  you 
may  have  Athena  for  lady's  maid  whenever  you  choose. 
"Next,  hark  how  she  gives  strength  to  Achilles  when  he 
is  broken  with  fasting  and  grief.  Jupiter  pities  him  and 
says  to  her, — "  '  Daughter  mine,  are  you  forsaking  your 
own  soldier,  and  don't  you  care  for  Achilles  any  more  ? 
sec  how  hungry  and  weak  he  is, — go  and  feed  him  with 
ambrosia.'  So  he  urged  the  eager  Athena;  and  she  leaped 
down  out  of  heaven  like  a  harpy  falcon,  shrill  voiced  ;  and 
she  poured  nectar  and  ambrosia,  full  of  delight,  into  the 
breast  of  Achilles,  that  his  limbs  might  not  fail  with  fam- 
ine then  she  returned  to  the  solid  dome  of  her  Etrong  fa- 
ther."    And  then  comes  the  groat  passages  a1. out  Achilles 


38  THE    QUEEN    OF    I  HE    AIK. 

arming-  -for  which  we  have  no  time.  But  here  is  again 
Athena  giving  strength  to  the  whole  Greek  army.  She 
came  as  a  falcon  to  Achilles,  straight  at  him; — a  sudden 
drift  of  breeze ;  but  to  the  army  she  must  come  widely, — 
she  sweeps  round  them  all.  "As  when  Jupiter  spreads 
the  purple  rainbow  over  heaven,  portending  battle  or 
cold  storm,  so  Athena,  wrapping  herself  round  with  a 
purple  cloud,  stooped  to  the  Greek  soldiers,  and  raised  up 
each  of  them."  Note  that  purple,  in  Homer's  use  of  it, 
nearly  always  means  "  fiery,"  "  full  of  light."  It  is  tliG 
light  of  the  rainbow,  not  the  colour  of  it,  which  Homei 
Etieans  you  to  think  of. 

34.  But  the  most  curious  passage  of  all,  and  fullest  of 
meaning,  is  when  she  gives  strength  to  Menelaus,  that  he 
may  stand  unwearied  against  Hector.  He  prays  to  her : 
"And  blue-eyed  Athena  was  glad  that  he  prayed  to 
her,  first ;  and  she  gave  him  strength  in  his  shoulders,  and 
in  his  limbs,  and  she  gave  him  the  courage" — of  what 
animal,  do  you  suppose  ?  Had  it  been  Neptune  or  Mars, 
they  would  have  given  him  the  courage  of  a  bull,  or  a 
lion ;  but  Athena  gives  him  the  courage  of  the  most  fear- 
less in  attack  of  all  creatures — small  or  great — and  very 
small  it  is,  but  wholly  incapable  of  terror, — she  gives 
him  the  courage  of  a  fly. 

35.  Now  this  simile  of  Homer's  is  one  of  the  best  in- 
stances I  can  give  yoi  of  the  way  in  which  great  writers 
seize  truths  unconsciously  which  are  for  all  time.  It  is 
only  recent  science  which  has  completely  shown  the  per 
fectness  of  this  minute  symbol  of  the  power  of  Athena; 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEAVENS.  39 

proving  that  the  insect's  flight  and  breath  are  co-ordina- 
ted ;  that  its  wings  are  actually  forcing-pumps,  of  which 
the  stroke  compels  the  thoracic  respiration ;  and  that 
it  thus  breathes  and  flies  simultaneously  by  the  action  of 
the  same  muscles,  so  that  respiration  is  carried  on  most 
vigorously  during  flight,  "  while  the  air-vessels,  supplied 
by  many  pairs  of  lungs  instead  of  one,  traverse  the  organs 
of  flight  in  far  greater  numbers  than  the  capillary  blood- 
vessels of  our  own  system,  and  give  enormous  and  untir- 
ing muscular  power,  a  rapidity  of  action  measured  by 
thousands  of  strokes  in  the  minute,  and  an  endurance,  by 
miles  and  hours  of  flight."  * 

Homer  could  not  have  known  this  ;  neither  that  the 
buzzing  of  the  fly  was  produced  as  in  a  wind  instrument, 
by  a  constant  current  of  air  through  the  trachea.  But  he 
'had  seen,  and,  doubtless,  meant  us  to  remember,  the  mar- 
vellous strength  and  swiftness  of  the  insect's  flight  (the 
glance  of  the  swallow  itself  is  clumsy  and  slow  compared 
to  the  darting  of  common  house-flies  at  play)  ;  he  probably 
attributed  its  murmur  to  the  wings,  but  in  this  also  there 
was  a  type  of  what  we  shall  presently  And  recognized  in 
the  name  of  Pallas, — the  vibratory  power  of  the  air  to  con- 
vey sound, — while,  as  a  purifying  creature,  the  fly  holds 
its  place  beside  the  old  symbol  of  Athena  m  Egypt,  the 
vulture;  and  as  a  venomous  and  tormenting  creature,  has 
more  than  the  strength  of  the  serpent  in  proportion  to  ita 
size,  being  thus  entirely  representative  of  the  influence  of 
*  Orraerod.     Natural  History  of  FPI 


4:0  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIK. 

the  air  both  in  purification  and  pestilence  ;  and  its  courage 
is  so  notable  that,  strangely  enough,  forgetting  Homer's 
simile,  I  happened  to  take  the  fly  for  an  expression  of  the 
audacity  of  freedom  in  speaking  of  quite  another  subject.* 
Whether  it  should  be  called  courage,  or  mere  mechanical 
instinct,  may  be  questioned,  but  assuredly  no  other  ani- 
mal, exposed  to  continual  danger,  is  so  absolutely  without 
sign  of  fear. 

36.  You  will,  perhaps,  have  still  patience  to  hear  two 
instances,  not  of  the  communication  of  strength,  but  of  the 
personal  agency  of  Athena  as  the  air.  When  she  cornea 
down  to  help  Diomed  against  Ares,  she  does  not  come  to 
fight  instead  of  him,  but  she  takes  his  charioteer's  place. 

"  She  snatched  the  reins,  she  lashed  with  all  her  force, 
And  full  on  Mars  impelled  the  foaming  horse." 

Ares  is  the  first  to  cast  his  spear  ;  then,  note  this,  Pope 
says : — 

"  Pallas  opposed  her  hand,  and  caused  to  glance, 
Far  from  the  car,  the  strong  immortal  lance." 

She  does  not  oppose  her  hand  in  the  Greek — the  wind 
could  not  meet  the  lance  straight — she  catches  it  in  her 
hand,  and  throws  it  off.  There  is  no  instance  in  which  a 
lance  is  so  parried  by  a  mortal  hand  in  all  the  Iliad,  and 
it  is  exactly  the  way  the  wind  would  parry  it,  catching  it, 
and  turning  it  aside.  If  there  are  any  good  rifleshots  here 
— they  know  something  about  Athena's  parrying — and  in 
old  times  the  English  masters  of  feathered  artillery  knew 
*  See  farther  on,  §  L48,  pp.  152-153. 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  41 

more  yet.     Compare  also  the  turning  of  Hector's  lance 
from  Achilles  :  Iliad  xx.  439. 

37.  The  last  instance  I  will  give  you  is  as  lovely  as  it  is 
subtle.  Throughout  the  Iliad,  Athena  is  herself  the  will 
or  ."Menis  of  Achilles.  If  he  is  to  be  calmed,  it  is  she  who 
calms  him  ;  if  angered,  it  is  she  who  inflames  him.  In 
the  first  quarrel  with  Atrides,  when  he  stands  at  pause, 
with  the  great  sword  half  drawn,  "  Athena  came  from 
heaven,  and  stood  behind  him,  and  caught  him  by  the 
yellow  hair."  Another  god  would  have  stayed  his  hand 
upon  the  hilt,  but  Athena  only  lifts  his  hah*.  "  And  he 
turned  and  knew  her,  and  her  dreadful  eyes  shone  upon 
him."  There  is  an  exquisite  tenderness  in  this  laying  her 
hand  upon  his  hair,  for  it  is  the  talisman  of  his  life,  vowed 
to  his  own  Thessalian  river  if  he  ever  returned  to  its 
•shore,  and  cast  upon  Patroclus'  pile,  so  ordaining  that 
there  should  be  no  return. 

38.  Secondly — Athena  is  the  air  giving  vegetative  im- 
pulse to  the  earth.  She  is  the  wind  and  the  rain-*-and 
yet  more  the  pure  air  itself,  getting  at  the  earth  fresh 
turned  by  spade  or  plough — and,  above  all,  feeding  the 
fresh  leaves ;  for  though  the  Greeks  knew  nothing  about 
carbonic  acid,  they  did  know  that  trees  fed  on  the  air. 

Now,  note  first  in  this,  the  myth  of  the  air  getting  at 
ploughed  ground.  You  know  I  told  you  the  Lord  of  all 
labour  by  which  man  lived  was  Hephaestus;  therefore 
Athena  adopts  a  child  of  his,  and  of  the  Earth, — Erich- 
thonius, — literally,  "  the  tearer  up  of  the  ground" — who 


42  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE   ATE. 

is  the  head  (though  not  in  direct  line,)  of  the  kings  of 
Attica ;  and  having  adopted  him,  she  gives  him  to  be 
brought  up  by  the  three  nymphs  of  the  dew.  Of  these, 
Aglauros,  the  dweller  in  the  fields,  is  the  envy  or  malice 
of  the  earth  ;  she  answers  nearly  to  the  envy  of  Cain,  the 
tiller  of  the  ground,  against  his  shepherd  brother,  in  her 
own  envy  against  her  two  sisters,  Herse,  the  cloud  dew, 
who  is  the  beloved  of  the  shepherd  Mercury  ;  and  Pan- 
drosos,  the  diffused  dew,  or  dew  of  heaven.  Literally,  you 
have  in  this  myth  the  words  of  the  blessing  of  Esau — 
"  Thy  dwelling  shall  be  of  the  fatness  of  the  earth,  and  of 
the  dew  of  heaven  from  above."  Aglauros  is  for  her  envy 
turned  into  a  black  stone  ;  and  hers  is  one  of  the  voices, — 
the  other  being  that  of  Cain, — which  haunts  the  circle  of 
envy  in  the  Purgatory : — 

"Io  sono  Aglauro,  chi  divenne  sasso." 

But  to  her  two  sisters,  with  Erichthonius,  (or  the  hero 
Erectheus,)  is  built  the  most  sacred  temple  of  Athena  in 
Athens  ;  the  temple  to  their  own  dearest  Athena — to  her, 
and  to  the  dew  together  :  so  that  it  was  divided  into  two 
parts :  one,  the  temple  of  Athena  of  the  city,  and  the  other 
that  of  the  dew.  And  this  expression  of  her  power,  as  the 
air  bringing  the  dew  to  the  hill  pastures,  in  the  central 
temple  of  the  central  city  of  the  heathen,  dominant  over 
the  future  intellectual  world,  is,  of  all  the  facts  connected 
with  her  worship  as  the  spirit  of  life,  perhaps  the  most 
important.  I  have  no  time  now  to  trace  for  you  the 
hundredth   part  of  f,he  different  ways  in  which  it  beare 


ATHENA   IN    THE   HEAVENS.  43 

both  upon  natural  beauty,  and  on  the  best  order  and  hap 
piness  of  men's  lives.  I  hope  to  follow  out  some  of  these 
trains  of  thought  in  gathering  together  what  I  have  to  say 
about  field  herbage  ;  but  I  must  say  briefly  here  that  the 
great  sign,  to  the  Greeks,  of  the  coming  of  spring  in  the 
pastures,  was  not,  as  with  us,  in  the  primrose,  but  in  the 
various  flowers  of  the  asphodel  tribe  (of  which  I  will  give 
you  some  separate  account  presently) ;  therefore  it  is  that 
the  earth  answers  with  crocus  flame  to  the  cloud  on  Ida ; 
and  the  power  of  Athena  in  eternal  life  is  written  by  the 
light  of  the  asphodel  on  the  Elysian  fields. 

But  farther,  Athena  is  the  air,  not  only  to  the  lilies  of 
the  field,  but  to  the  leaves  of  the  forest.  "We  saw  before 
the  reason  why  Hermes  is  said  to  be  the  son  of  Maia,  the 
eldest  of  the  sister  stars  of  spring.  Those  stars  are  called 
not  only  Pleiades,  but  Vergilise,  from  a  word  mingling  the 
ideas  of  the  turning  or  returning  of  spring-time  with  the 
outpouring  of  rain.  The  mother  of  Yirgil  bearing  the 
name  of  Maia,  Yirgil  himself  received  his  name  from  the 
seven  stars ;  and  he,  in  forming,  first,  the  mind  of  Dante, 
and  through  him  that  of  Chaucer  (besides  whatever  special 
minor  influence  came  from  the  Pastorals  and  Georgics), 
became  the  fountain-head  of  all  the  best  literary  power 
connected  with  the  love  of  vegetative  nature  among  civi- 
li-zed  races  of  men.  Take  the  fact  for  what  it  is  worth ; 
still  it  is  a  strange  seal  of  coincidence,  in  word  and  in 
reality,  upon  the  Greek  dream  of  the  power  over  human 
life,  and  its  purest  thoughts,  in  the  stars  of  spring.     But 


44  THE    QUEEN   OF   TIIE   AIR. 

the  first  syllable  of  the  name  of  Virgil  has  relation  also  tc 
another  group  of  words,  of  which  the  English  ones,  virtue, 
and  virgin,  bring  down  the  force  to  modern  days.  It  is  a 
group  containing  mainly  the  idea  of  "  spring,"  or  increase 
of  life  in  vegetation — the  rising  of  the  new  branch  of  the 
tree  out  of  the  bud,  and  of  the  new  leaf  out  of  the  ground. 
It  involves,  secondarily,  the  idea  of  greenness  and  of 
strength,  but  primarily,  that  of  living  increase  of  a  new 
rod  from  a  stock,  stem,  or  root ;  ("There  shall  come  forth 
a  rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse ; ")  and  chiefly  the  stem  of 
certain  plants — either  of  the  rose  tribe,  as  in  the  budding 
of  the  almond  rod  of  Aaron  ;  or  of  the  olive  tribe,  which 
has  triple  significance  in  this  symbolism,  from  the  use  of 
Us  oil  for  sacred  anointing,  for  strength  in  the  gymnasium, 
and  for  light.  Hence,  in  numberless  divided  and  reflected 
ways,  it  is  connected  with  the  power  of  Hercules  and 
Athena:  Hercules  plants  the  wild  olive,  for  its  shade,  on 
the  course  of  Olympia,  and  it  thenceforward  gives  the 
Olympic  crown,  of  consummate  honour  and  rest ;  while 
the  prize  at  the  Panathenaic  games  is  a  vase  of  its  oil, 
(meaning  encouragement  to  continuance  of  effort) ;  and 
from  the  paintings  on  these  Panathenaic  vases  we  get  the 
most  precious  clue  to  the  entire  character  of  Athena. 
Then  to  express  its  propagation  by  slips,  the  trees  from 
which  the  oil  was  to  be  taken  were  called  "  Moriai,"  trees 
of  division  (being  all  descendants  of  the  sacred  one  in  the 
Erechtheum).  And  thus,  in  one  direction,  we  get  to  the 
"children  like  olive  plants  round  about  thy  table  "  an i 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  45 

the  olive  grafting  of  St.  Paul ;  while  the  use  of  the  oil  foi 
anointing  gives  chief  name  to  the  rod  itself  of  the  stem  of 
Jesse,  and  to  all  those  who  were  by  that  name  signed  for 
his  disciples  first  in  Antioch.  Remember,  farther,  since 
that  name  was  first  given,  the  influence  of  the  symbolr 
both  in  extreme  unction,  and  in  consecration  of  priests 
and  kings  to  their  "  divine  right ;  "  and  think,  if  you  can 
reach  with  any  grasp  of  thought,  what  the  influence  on 
the  earth  has  been,  of  those  twisted  branches  whose  leaves 
give  grey  bloom  to  the  hill-sides  under  every  breeze  that 
blows  from  the  midland  sea.  But,  above  and  beyond  all 
think  how  strange  it  is  that  the  chief  Agonia  of  humanity, 
and  the  chief  giving  of  strength  from  heaven  for  its  fulfil- 
ment, should  have  been  under  its  night  shadow  in  Palestine. 

39.  Thirdly — Athena  is  the  air  in  its  power  over  the  sea. 

On  the  earliest  Panathenaic  vase  known — the  "  Burgon  " 
vase  in  the  British  Museum — Athena  has  a  dolphin  on  her 
shield.  The  dolphin  has  two  principal  meanings  in  Greek 
Bymbolism.  It  means,  first,  the  sea;  secondarily,  the 
ascending  and  descending  course  of  any  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  from  one  sea  horizon  to  another — the  dolphins' 
arching  rise  and  replunge  (in  a  summer  evening,  out  of 
calm  sea,  their  black  backs  roll  round  with  exactly  the 
slow  motion  of  a  water-wheel ;  but  I  do  not  know  how 
far  Aristotle's  exaggerated  account  of  their  leaping  or 
their  swiftness  has  any  foundation,)  being  taken  as  a  type 
of  the  emergerce  of  the  sun  or  stars  from  the  sea  in  the 
east,  and  plunging  beneath  in  the  west.     Hence,  Apoll:^ 


4.6  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIE. 

when  ixi  his  personal  power  lie  crosses  the  sea,  leading  hit 
Cretan  colonists  to  Pytho,  takes  the  form  of  a  dolphin, 
becomes  Apollo  Delphinius,  and  names  the  founded  colony 
"  Delphi."  The  lovely  drawing  of  the  Delphic  Apollo  on 
thehydria  of  the  Vatican  (Le  Normand  and  De  Witte,  vol. 
ii.  p.  6),  gives  the  entire  conception  of  this  myth.  Again, 
the  beautiful  coins  of  Tarentum  represent  Taras  coming 
to  found  the  city,  riding  on  a  dolphin,  whose  leaps  and 
plunges  have  partly  the  rage  of  the  sea  in  them,  and  partly 
the  spring  of  the  horse,  because  the  spleixlid  riding  of  the 
Tarentines  had  made  their  name  proverbial  in  Magna 
Grsecia.  The  story  of  Arion  is  a  collateral  fragment  of 
the  same  thought;  and,  again,  the  plunge  "before  their 
transformation,  of  the  ships  of  ^Eneas.  Then,  this  idea 
of  career  upon,  or  conquest  of  the  sea,  either  by  the  crea- 
tures themselves,  or  by  dolphin-like  ships,  (compare  the 
Merlin  prophecy, — 

"  They  shall  ride 
Over  ocean  wide 
With  hempen  bridle,  and  horse  of  tree,)" 

connects  itself  with  the  thought  of  undulation,  and  of  the 
wave-power  in  the  sea  itself,  which  is  always  expressed  by 
the  serpentine  bodies  either  of  the  sea-gods  or  of  the  sea- 
horse ;  and  when  Athena  carries,  as  she  does  often  in  later 
work,  a  serpent  for  her  shield-sign,  it  is  not  so  much  the 
repetition  of  her  own  aegis-snakes  as  the  farther  expression 
of  her  power  over  the  sea-wave ;  which,  finally,  Virgil 
gives  in  its  perfect  unity  with  her  own  anger,  in  the 
approach  of  the  serpents  against  Laocoon  from  the  sea; 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEAVENS.  4? 

and  then,  finally,  when  her  own  storm-power  is  fully  put 
forth  on  the  ocean  also,  and  the  madness  of  the  segis-suake 
is  given  to  the  wave-snake,  the  sea-wave  becomes  the 
devouring  hound  at  the  waist  of  Scylla,  and  Athena  takes 
Scylla  for  her  helmet-crest ;  while  yet  her  beneficent  and 
essential  power  on  the  ocean,  in  making  navigation  possi- 
ble, is  commemorated  in  the  Panathenaic  festival  by  her 
peplus  being  carried  to  the  Erechtheuni  suspended  from 
the  mast  of  a  ship. 

In  Plate  cxv.  of  vol.  ii.,  Le  JSTormand,  are  given  two 
sides  of  a  vase,  which,  in  rude  and  childish  way,  assembles 
most  of  the  principal  thoughts  regarding  Athena  in  this 
relation.  In  the  first,  the  sunrise  is  represented  by  the 
ascending  chariot  of  Apollo,  foreshortened ;  the  light  is 
supposed  to  blind  the  eyes,  and  no  face  of  the  god  is  seen 
(Turner,  in  the  Ulysses  and  Polyphemus  sunrise,  loses  the 
form  of  the  god  in  light,  giving  the  chariot-horses  only ; 
rendering  in  his  own  manner,  after  2,200  years  of  various 
fall  and  revival  of  the  arts,  precisely  the  same  thought  as 
the  old  Greek  potter).  lie  ascends  out  of  the  sea ;  but 
the  sea  itself  has  not  yet  caught  the  light.  In  the  second 
design,  Athena  as  the  morning  breeze,  and  Hermes  as  the 
morning  cloud,  fly  over  the  sea  before  the  sun.  Hermes 
turns  back  his  head  ;  his  face  is  unseen  in  the  cloud,  as 
Apollo's  in  the  light ;  the  grotesque  appearance  of  an  ani- 
mal's face  is  only  the  cloud-phantasm  modifying  a  frequent 
form  of  the  hair  of  Hermes  beneath  the  back  of  his  cap. 
Under  the  morning  breeze,  the  dolphins  leap  from  the  rip- 
pled sea,  and  their  sides  catch  the  light. 


48 


THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIB. 


The  coins  of  the  Lucanian  Heracleia  give  a  fair  repre- 
sentation of  the  helmed  Athena,  as  imagined  in  latei 
Greek  art,  with  the  embossed  Scylla. 

40.  Fourthly — Athena  is  the  air  nourishing  artificial 
light — unconsuming  fire.  Therefore,  a  lamp  was  always 
kept  burning  in  the  Erechtheum;  and  the  torch-race 
belongs  chiefly  to  her  festival,  of  which  the  meaning  is  to 
show  the  danger  of  the  perishing  of  the  light  even  by 
excess  of  the  air  that  nourishes  it:  and  so  that  the  race  is 
not  to  the  swift,  but  to  the  wise.  The  household  use  of 
her  constant  light  is  symbolized  in  the  lovely  passage  in 
the  Odyssey,  where  Ulysses  and  his  son  move  the  armour 
while  the  servants  are  shut  in  their  chambers,  and  there 
is  no  one  to  hold  torches  for  them;  but  Athena  herself, 
"having  a  golden  lamp,"  fills  all  the  rooms  with  light. 
Her  presence  in  war-strength  with  her  favourite  heroes  is 
always  shown  by  the  "unwearied"  fire  hovering  on  their 
helmets  and  shields;  and  the  image  gradually  becomes 
constant  and  accepted,  both  for  the  maintenance  of  house- 
hold watchfulness,  as  in  the  parable  of  the  ten  virgins,  or 
as  the  symbol  of  direct  inspiration,  in  the  rushing  wind 
and  divided  flames  of  Pentecost :  but,  together  with  this 
thought  of  unconsuming  and  constant  fire,  there  is  always 
mingled  in  the  Greek  mind  the  sense  of  the  consuming  by 
excess,  as  of  the  flame  by  the  air,  so  also  of  the  inspired 
creature  by  its  own  fire  (thus,  again,  "the  zeal  of  thine 
house  hath  eaten  me  up" — "my  zeal  hath  consumed  me, 
because  of  thine  enemies,"  and  the  like);  and  especially 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEAM'ffl.  49 

Athena  has  this  aspect  towards  the  truly  sensual  and 
bodily  strength;  so  that  to  Ares,  wro  is  himself  insane 
and  consuming,  the  opposite  wisdom  seems  to  be  insane 
and  consuming:  "All  we  the  other  gods  have  thee  against 
us,  O  Jove!  when  we  would  give  grace  to  men;  for  thou 
hast  begotten  the  maid  without  a  mind — the  mischievous 
creature,  the  doer  of  unseemly  evil.  All  we  obey  thee, 
and  are  ruled  by  thee.  Her  only  thou  wilt  not  resist  in 
anything  she  says  or  does,  because  thou  didst  bear  her— 
consuming  child  as  she  is." 

41.  Lastly — Athena  is  the  air,  conveying  vibration  of 
sound. 

In  all  the  loveliest  representations  in  central  Greek  art 
of  the  birth  of  Athena,  Apollo  stands  close  to  the  sitting 
Jupiter,  singing,  with  a  deep,  quiet  joy  fulness,  to  his  lyre. 
The  sun  is  always  thought  of  as  the  master  of  time  and 
rhythm,  and  as  the  origin  of  the  composing  and  inventive 
discovery  of  melody;  but  the  air,  as  the  actual  element 
and  substance  of  the  voice,  the  prolonging  and  sustaining 
power  of  it,  and  the  symbol  of  its  moral  passion.  What- 
ever in  music  is  measured  and  designed,  belongs  therefore 
to  Apollo  and  the  Muses;  whatever  is  impulsive  and  pas- 
sionate, to  Athena:  hence  her  constant  strength  of  voice 
or  cry  (as  when  she  aids  the  shout  of  Achilles)  curiously 
cpposed  to  the  dumbness  of  Dcmeter.  The  Apolline  lyre, 
therefore,  is  not  so  much  the  instrument  producing  Bound, 
ao  its  measurer  and  divider  by  length  or  tension  of  Btring 
into  given  notes;  and  I  believe  it  is,  in  a  double  conn.- 

3 


60  THE    QUEEN   OF    THE    AIR. 

tion  with  its  office  as  a  measurer  of  time  or  motion,  and  ita 
velation  to  the  transit  of  the  sun  in  the  sky,  that  Hermea 
forms  it  from  the  tortoise-shell,  which  is  the  image  of  the 
dappled  concave  of  the  cloudy  sky.  Thenceforward  all 
the  limiting  or  restraining  modes  of  music  belong  to  the 
Muses ;  but  the  passionate  music  is  wind  music,  as  in  the 
Doric  flute.  Then,  when  this  inspired  music  becomes 
degraded  in  its  passion,  it  sinks  into  the  pipe  of  Pan,  and 
the  double  pipe  of  Marsyas,  and  is  then  rejected  by 
Athena.  The  myth  which  represents  her  doing  so  is  that 
she  invented  the  double  pipe  from  hearing  the  hiss  of  the 
Gorgonian  serpents ';  but  when  she  played  upon  it,  chanc- 
ing to  see  her  face  reflected  in  water,  she  saw  that  it 
was  distorted,  whereupon  she  threw  down  the  flute,  which 
Marsyas  found.  Then,  the  strife  of  Apollo  and  Marsyas 
represents  the  enduring  contest  between  music  in  which 
the  words  and  thought  lead,  and  the  lyre  measures  or 
melodizes  them,  (which  Pindar  means  when  he  calls  his 
hymns  "kings  over  the  lyre,")  and  music  in  which  the 
words  are  lost,  and  the  wind  or  impulse  leads. — generally, 
therefore,  between  intellectual,  and  brutal,  or  meaning- 
less, music.  Therefore,  when  Apollo  prevails,  he  flays 
Marsyas,  taking  the  limit  and  external  bond  of  his  shape 
from  him,  which  is  death,  without  touching  the  .nere  mus 
cular  strength;  yet  shameful  and  dreadful  in  dissolution. 

42.  And  the  opposition  of  these  two  kinds  of  sound  is 
continually  dwelt  upon  by  the  Greek  philosophers,  the 
real  fact  at  the  root  of  all  their  teaching  being  this, — that 


ATHENA   Df   THE   HEAVENS.  51 

true  music  is  the  natural  expression  of  a  lofty  passion  for 
a  right  cause ;  that  in  proportion  to  the  kingliness  and 
force  of  any  personality,  the  expression  either  of  its  joy  01 
Buffering  becomes  measured,  chastened,  calm,  and  capable 
of  interpretation  only  by  the  majesty  of  ordered,  beautiful. 
and  worded  sound.  Exactly  in  proportion  to  the  degree 
in  which  we  become  narrow  in  the  cause  and  conception 
of  our  passions,  incontinent  in  the  utterance  of  them,  feeble 
of  perseverance  in  them,  sullied  or  shameful  in  the  indul- 
gence of  them,  their  expression  by  musical  sound  becomes 
broken,  mean,  fatuitous,  and  at  last  impossible;  the  mea- 
sured waves  of  the  air  of  heaven  will  not  lend  themselves 
to  expression  of  ultimate  vice,  it  must  be  for  ever  sunk 
into  discordance  or  silence.  And  since,  as  before  stated, 
every  work  of  right  art  has  a  tendency  to  reproduce  the 
ethical  state  which  first  developed  it,  this,  which  of  all  the 
arts  is  most  directly  ethical  in  origin,  is  also  the  most  direct 
in  power  of  discipline ;  the  first,  the  simplest,  the  most 
effective  of  all  instruments  of  moral  instruction  ;  while  in 
the  failure  and  betrayal  of  its  functions,  it  becomes  the 
subtlest  aid  of  moral  degradation.  Music  is  thus,  in  her 
health,  the  teacher  of  perfect  order,  and  is  the  voice  of  the 
obedience  of  angels,  and  the  companion  of  the  course  of 
the  spheres  of  heaven  ;  and  in  her  depravity  she  is  also  the 
teacher  of  perfect  disorder  and  disobedience,  and  the  Gloria 
in  Excelsis  becomes  the  Marseillaise.  In  the  third  section 
of  this  volume,  I  reprint  two  chapters  from  another  essay 
of  mine,  ("  The  Cestus  of  Aglaia,")  on  modesty  o)  measure, 


62  THE    QUEEN    OF    THE   AIR. 

and  en  liberty,  containing  farther  reference  to  music  ir 
her  two  powers  ;  and  I  do  this  now,  because,  among  the 
many  monstrous  and  misbegotten  fantasies  which  are  the 
spawn  of  modern  licence,  perhaps  the  most  impishly  oppp 
ite  to  the  truth  is  the  conception  of  music  which  has  ren- 
dered possible  the  writing,  by  educated  persons,  and,  more 
strangely  yet,  the  tolerant  criticism,  of  such  words  as  these: 
— "  This  so  persuasive  art  is  the  only  one  that  has  no  di- 
dactic efficacy,  that  engenders  no  emotions  save  such  as  an 
without  issue  on  the  side  of  moral  truth,  that  expresses 
nothing  of  God,  nothing  of  reason,  nothing  of  human 
liberty.''''  I  will  not  give  the  author's  name;  the  passage 
is  quoted  in  the  Westminster  Review  for  last  January,  p. 
153. 

43.  I  must  also  anticipate  something  of  what  I  have  to 
say  respecting  the  relation  of  the  power  of  Athena  to  or- 
ganic life,  so  far  as  to  note  that  her  name,  Pallas,  probably 
refers  to  the  quivering  or  vibration  of  the  air ;  and  to  its 
power,  whether  as  vital  force,  or  communicated  wave,  ovei* 
every  kind  of  matter,  in  giving  it  vibratory  movement ; 
first,  and  most  intense,  in  the  voice  and  throat  of  the  bird  ; 
which  is  the  air  incarnate  ;  and  so  descending  through  the 
various  orders  of  animal  life  to  the  vibrating  and  semi- 
volrntary  murmur  of  the  insect ;  and,  lower  still,  to  the 
hiss,  or  quiver  of  the  tail,  of  the  half-lunged  snake  and  deaf 
adder ;  all  these,  nevertheless,  being  wholly  under  the  rule 
of  Athena  as  representing  either  breath,  or  vital  nervoua 
power  ;  and,  therefore,  also,  in  their  simplicity,  the  "  oaten 


ATHENA   IN    THE    HEAVENS.  53 

pipe  and  pastoral  song,"  which  belong  to  her  dominion 
over  the  asphodel  meadows,  and  breathe  on  their  banks  of 
violets. 

Finally,  is  it  not  strange  to  think  of  the  influence  of  this 
one  power  of  Pallas  in  vibration  ;  (we  shall  see  a  singular 
mechanical  energy  of  it  presently  in  the  serpent's  motion  ;) 
in  the  voices  of  war  and  peace?  How  much  of  the  re 
pose — how  much  of  the  wrath,  folly,  and  misery  of  men, 
has  literally  depended  on  this  one  power  of  the  air ;—  on 
the  sound  of  the  trumpet  and  of  the  bell — on  the  1?  k's 
song,  and  the  bee's  murmur. 

4A.  Such  is  the  general  conception  in  the  Greek  i  iind 
of  the  physical  power  of  Athena.  The  spiritual  power  as- 
sociated with  it  is  of  two  kinds ; — first,  she  is  the  Spirit  of 
Life  in  material  organism ;  not  strength  in  the  blood  only, 
but  formative  energy  in  the  clay :  and,  secondly,  she  is  in 
spired  and  impulsive  wisdom  in  human  conduct  and  human 
art,  giving  the  instinct  of  infallible  decision,  and  uf  fault- 
less invention. 

It  is  quite  beyond  the  scope  of  my  present  purpose— and, 
indeed,  will  only  be  possible  for  me  at  all  after  marking 
the  relative  intention  of  the  Apolline  myths — to  trace  for 
you  the  Greek  conception  of  Athena  as  the  guide  of  moral 
passion.  But  I  will  at  least  endeavor,  on  some  near  occa- 
sion,* to  define  some  of  the  actual  truths  respecting  the 
vital  force  in  created  organism,  and  inventive  fancy  in  the 

*  I  have  tried  to  do  this  in  mere  outline  in  the  two  following  section! 
of  this  volume. 


64  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

works  of  man,  which  are  more  or  less  expressed  by  the 
Greeks,  under  the  personality  of  Athena.  You  would, 
perhaps,  hardly  bear  with  me  if  I  endeavoured  farther  to 
show  you — what  is  nevertheless  perfectly  true — the  ana 
logy  between  the  spiritual  power  of  Athena  in  her  gentle 
ministry,  yet  irresistible  anger,  with  the  ministry  of 
another  Spirit  whom  we  also,  holding  for  the  universal 
power  of  life,  are  forbidden,  at  our  worst  peril,  to  quench 
or  to  grieve. 

45.  But,  I  think,  to-night,  you  should  not  let  me  close 
without  requiring  of  me  an  answer  on  one  vital  point, 
namely,  how  far  these  imaginations  of  Gods — which  are 
vain  to  us — were  vain  to  those  who  had  no  better  trust  \ 
and  what  real  belief  the  Greek  had  in  these  creations  of 
his  own  spirit,  practical  and  helpful  to  him  in  the  sorrow 
of  earth?  I  am  able  to  answer  you  explicitly  in  this. 
The  origin  of  his  thoughts  is  often  obscure,  and  we  may 
err  in  endeavouring  to  account  for  their  form  of  real- 
ization ;  but  the  effect  of  that  realization  on  his  life  is 
not  obscure  at  all.  The  Greek  creed  was,  of  course, 
different  in  its  character,  as  our  own  creed  is,  according  to 
the  class  of  persons  who  held  it.  The  common  people's 
was  quite  literal,  simple,  and  happy  :  their  idea  of  Athena 
was  as  clear  as  a  good  Roman  Catholic  peasant's  idea  of 
the  Madonna.  In  Athens  itself,  the  centre  of  thought 
and  refinement,  Pisistratus  obtained  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment through  the  ready  belief  of  the  populace  that  a 
beautiful  woman,   armed  like  Athena,  was  the   goddess 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEAVENS.  55 

herself.  Even  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  some  of  this 
simplicity  remained  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  Greek 
islands ;  and  when  a  pretty  English  lady  first  made  her 
way  into  the  grotto  of  Antiparos,  she  was  surrounded,  on 
her  return,  by  all  the  women  of  the  neighbouring  village 
believing  her  to  be  divine,  and  praying  her  to  heal  their 
of  their  sicknesses. 

46.  Then,  secondly,  the  creed  of  the  upper  classes  was 
more  refined  and  spiritual,  but  quite  as  honest,  and  even 
more  forcible  in  its  effect  on  the  life.  You  might  imagine 
that  the  employment  of  the  artifice  just  referred  to  im- 
plied utter  unbelief  in  the  persons  contriving  it ;  but  it 
really  meant  only  that  the  more  worldly  of  them  would 
play  with  a  popular  faith  for  their  own  purposes,  as  doubly- 
minded  persons  have  often  done  since,  all  the  while  sincerely 
holding  the  same  ideas  themselves  in  a  more  abstract  form  ; 
while  the  good  and  unworldly  men,  the  true  Greek  heroes, 
lived  by  their  faith  as  firmly  as  St.  Louis,  or  the  Cid,  or 
the  Chevalier  Bayard. 

47.  Then,  thirdly,  the  faith  of  the  poets  and  artists  was, 
necessarily,  less  definite,  being  continually  modified  by  the 
involuntary  action  of  their  own  fancies  ;  and  by  the  neces- 
sity of  presenting,  in  clear  verbal  or  material  form,  things 
of  which  they  had  no  authoritative  knowledge.  Their 
faith  was,  in  some  respects,  like  Dante's  or  Milton's  ■  firm 
in  general  conception,  but  not  able  to  vouch  for  every 
detail  in  the  forms  they  gave  it:  but  they  wen+  considera- 
bly farther,  even  in  that  minor  sincerity,  than  subsequent 


56  THE   QUEEN    OF   THE   AIR. 

poets ;  aLd  strove  with  all  their  might  to  be  as  near  the 
truth  as  they  could.  Pindar  says,  quite  simply,  "  I  can- 
not think  so-and-so  of  the  Gods.  It  must  have  been  this 
way — it  cannot  have  been  that  way — that  the  thing  avis 
done."  And  as  late  among  the  Latins  as  the  days  of 
Horace,  this  sincerity  remains.  Horace  is  just  as  true 
and  simple  in  his  religion  as  Wordsworth ;  but  all  powei 
of  understanding  any  of  the  honest  classic  poets  has  been 
taken  away  from  most  English  gentlemen  by  the  mechan- 
ical drill  in  verse- writing  at  school.  Throus-hout  the 
whole  of  their  lives  afterwards,  they  never  can  get  them- 
selves quit  of  the  notion  that  all  verses  were  written  as  an 
exercise,  and  that  Minerva  was  only  a  convenient  word 
for  the  last  of  an  hexameter,  and  Jupiter  for  the  last  but 
one. 

48.  It  is  impossible  that  any  notion  can  be  more  fal- 
lacious or  more  misleading  in  its  consequences.  All  great 
song,  from  the  first  day  when  human  lips  contrived  sylla- 
bles, has  been  sincere  song.  With  deliberate  didactic 
purpose  the  tragedians — with  pure  and  native  passion  the 
lyrists — fitted  their  perfect  words  to  their  dearest  faiths. 
*kOperosa  parvus  carmina  fingo."  "  I,  little  thing  that  I 
am,  weave  my  laborious  songs"  as  earnestly  as  the  bee 
among  the  bells  of  thyme  on  the  Matin  mountains.  Yes, 
and  he  dedicates  his  favourite  pine  to  Diana,  and  he 
chants  his  autumnal  hymn  to  the  Faun  that  guards  hia 
fields,  and  he  guides  the  noble  youths  and  maids  of  Rome 
in  their  choir  to  Apollo,  and  he  tells  the  farmer's  1'ttle  giri 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEAVENS.  o7 

that  the  Gods  will  love  her,  though  she  has  only  a  handful 
of  salt  and  meal  to  give  them — just  as  earnestly  as  ever 
English  gentleman  taught  Christian  faith  to  English  youth 
ill  England's  truest  days. 

49.  Then,  lastly,  the  creed  of  the  philosophers  or  sages 
varied  according  to  the  character  and  knowledge  of  each ; 
— their  relative  acquaintance  with  the  secrets  of  natural 
science  —  their  intellectual  and  sectarian  egotism  —  and 
their  mystic  or  monastic  tendencies,  for  there  is  a  classic 
as  well  as  a  mediaeval  monasticism.  They  ended  in  losing 
the  life  of  Greece  in  play  upon  words ;  but  we  owe  to 
their  early  thought  some  of  the  soundest  ethics,  and  the 
foundation  of  the  best  practical  laws,  yet  known  to  man- 
kind. 

50.  Such  was  the  general  vitality  of  the  heathen  creed 
in  its  strength.  Of  its  direct  influence  on  conduct,  it  is, 
as  I  said,  impossible  for  me  to  speak  now ;  only,  remem- 
ber always,  in  endeavouring  to  form  a  judgment  of  it,  that 
what  of  good  or  right  the  heathens  did,  they  did  looking 
for  no  reward.  The  purest  forms  of  our  own  religion  have 
always  consisted  in  sacrificing  less  things  to  win  greater ; — 
time,  to  win  eternity, — the  world,  to  win  the  skies.  The 
order,  "  sell  that  thou  hast,"  is  not  given  without  the 
promise, — "thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven ;"  and  well 
for  the  modern  Christian  if  he  accepts  the  alternative  as 
his  Master  left  it — and  does  not  practically  read  the  com- 
mand and  promise  thus:  "  Sell  that  thou  hast  in  the  best 
market,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  eternity  also." 

a* 


58  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE   AIR. 

But  the  poor  Greeks  of  the  great  ages  expected  no  reward 
from  heaven  but  honour,  and  no  reward  from  earth  but 
rest ; — though,  when,  on  those  conditions,  they  patiently, 
and  proudly,  fulfilled  their  task  of  the  granted  day,  an 
unreasoning  instinct  of  an  immortal  benediction  broke 
from  their  lips  in  song :  and  they,  even  they,  had  some- 
times a  prophet  to  tell  them  of  a  land  "where  there  is  sun 
alike  by  day,  and  alike  by  night — where  they  shall  need 
no  more  to  trouble  the  earth  by  strength  of  hands  for 
daily  bread — but  the  ocean  breezes  blow  around  the 
blessed  islands,  and  golden  flowers  burn  on  their  bright 
trees  for  everm  vre." 


n. 

ATHENA    EERAMITIS  * 

{Athena  in  the  Earth?) 

Study,  supplementary  to  the  preceding  lecture,  of  the  supposed,  and  actual, 
relations  of  Athena  to  the  vital  force  in  material  organism. 

51.  It  has  been  easy  to  decipher  approximately  the 
Greek  conception  of  the  physical  power  of  Athena  in 
cloud  and  sky,  because  we  know  ourselves  what  clouda 
and  skies  are,  and  what  the  force  of  the  wind  is  in  form- 
ing them.  But  it  is  not  at  all  easy  to  trace  the  Greek 
thoughts  about  the  power  of  Athena  in  giving  life,  be- 
cause we  do  not  ourselves  know  clearly  what  life  is,  or  in 
what  way  the  air  is  necessary  to  it,  or  what  there  is,  be- 
sides the  air,  shaping  the  forms  that  it  is  put  into.  And 
it  is  comparatively  of  small  consequence  to  find  out  what 
the  Greeks  thought  or  meant,  until  we  have  determined 
what  we  ourselves  think,  or  mean,  when  we  translate  the 
Greek  word  for  "breathing"  into  the  Latin-Enjrlish  word 
"spirit." 

52.  But  it  is  of  great  consequence  that  you  should  fix 
in  your  minds — and  hold,  against  the  baseness  of  mere 

*  "  Athena,  fit  for  being  made  into  pottery."  I  coin  the  expression  as 
a  counterpart  of  yn  xapOiviaj  "Clay  intact." 


t>0  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIK. 

materialism  on  the  one  hand,  and  against  the  fallacies  of 
controversial  speculation  on  the  other — the  certain  ana 
practical  sense  of  this  word  "spirit  ;" — the  sense  in  which 
you  all  know  that  its  reality  exists,  as  the  power  which 
shaped  you  into  your  shape,  and  by  which  you  love,  and 
hate,  when  you  have  received  that  shape.  You  need  not 
fear,  on  the  one  hand,  that  either  the  sculpturing  or  the 
loving  pu  ?er  can  ever  be  beaten  down  by  the  philoso- 
phers into  a  metal,  or  evolved  by  them  into  a  gas :  but 
on  the  other  hand,  take  care  that  you  yourselves,  in  try- 
ing to  elevate  your  conception  of  it,  do  not  lose  its  truth 
in  a  dream,  or  even  in  a  word.  Beware  always  of  con- 
tending for  words  :  you  will  find  them  not  easy  to  grasp, 
if  you  know  them  in  several  languages.  This  very  word, 
which  is  so  solemn  in  your  mouths,  is  one  of  the  most 
doubtful.  In  Latin  it  means  little  more  than  breathing, 
and  may  mean  merely  accent ;  in  French  it  is  not  breath, 
but  wit,  and  our  neighbours  are  therefore  obliged,  even  in 
their  most  solemn  expressions,  to  say  "  wit "  when  we  say 
"  ghost."  In  Greek,  "  pneuma,"  the  word  we  translate 
"  ghost,"  means  either  wind  or  breath,  and  the  relative 
word  "  psyche "  has,  perhaps,  a  more  subtle  power ;  yet 
St.  Paul's  words  "pneumatic  body"  and  "psychic  body" 
involve  a  difference  in  his  mind  which  no  words  will  ex- 
plain. But  in  Greek  and  in  English,  and  in  Saxon  and 
in  Hebrew,  and  in  every  articulate  tongue  of  humanity 
the  "  spirit  of  man "  truly  means  his  passion  and  virtue, 
and  is  stately  according  to  the  height  of  his  conception, 
and  stable  according  to  the  measure  "of  his  endurance. 


ATHENA   IN   THE    EARTH.  61 

53.  Endurance,  or  patience,  that  is  the  central  sign  of 
spirit ;  a  constancy  against  the  cold  and. agony  of  death  ; 
and  as,  physically,  it  is  by  the  burning  power  of  the  air 
that  the  heat  of  the  flesh  is  sustained,  sr  this  Athena, 
spiritually,  is  the  queen  of  all  glowing  v-'.tue,  the  uncon- 
suming  fire  and  inner  lamp  of  life.  And  thus,  as  He- 
phsestus  is  lord  of  the  fire  of  the  hand  ad  Apollo  of  the  fire 
of  the  brain,  so  Athena  of  the  fire  )f  the  heart ;  and  as 
Hercules  wears  for  his  chief  armour  die  shin  of  theNemean 
/ion,  his  chief  enemy,  whom  he  slew  ;  and  Apollo  has  for 
his  highest  name  "  the  Pythian,"  from  his  chief  enemy,  the 
Python,  slain  ;  so  Athena  bears  always  on  her  breast  the 
deadly  face  of  her  chief  enemy  slain,  the  Gorgonian  cold, 
and  venomous  agony,  that  turns  living  men  to  stone. 

54.  And  so  long  as  you  have  that  fire  of  the  heart  within 
you,  and  know  the  reality  of  it,  you  need  be  under  no 
alarm  as  to  the  possibility  of  its  chemical  or  mechanical 
analysis.  The  philosophers  are  very  humorous  in  their 
ecstasy  of  hope  about  it ;  but  the  real  interest  of  their  dis- 
coveries in  this  direction  is  very  small  to  human-hind.  It 
is  quite  true  that  the  tympanum  of  the  ear  vibrates  under 
sound,  and  that  the  surface  of  the  water  in  a  ditch  vibrates 
too  :  but  the  ditch  hears  nothing  for  all  that ;  and  my 
hearing  is  still  to  me  as  blessed  a  mystery  ;is  ever,  and  tho 
interval  between  the  ditch  and  me,  quite  as  great.  If  tho 
trembling  sound  in  my  ears  was  once  of  the  marriage-bell 
which  began  my  happiness,  and  is  now  of  the  passing-bell 
which  ends  it,  the  difference  between  those  two  sounds  tc 


62  THE   QUEEN   OF  THE   AER. 

me  cannot  be  counted  by  the  number  of  concussions.  Thei  e 
have  been,  some  curious  speculations  lately  as  to  the  con- 
veyance of  mental  consciousness  by  "  brain-waves."  Wliat 
does  it  matter  how  it  is  conveyed  ?  The  consciousness  it- 
self is  not  a  wave.  It  may  be  accompanied  here  or  there 
by  any  quantity  of  quivers  and  shakes,  up  or  down,  of  any- 
thing you  can  find  in  the  universe  that  is  shakeable — what 
is  that  to  me  ?  My  friend  is  dead,  and  my — according  to 
modern  views — vibratory  sorrow  is  not  one  whit  less,  or 
less  mysterious,  to  me,  than  my  old  quiet  one. 

55.  Beyond,  and  entirely  unaffected  by,  any  questionings 
of  this  kiud,  there  are,  therefore,  two  plain  facts  which  we 
should  all  know  :  first,  that  there  is  a  power  which  gives 
their  several  shapes  to  things,  or  capacities  of  shape  ;  and, 
secondly,  a  power  which  gives  them  their  several  feelings, 
or  capacities  of  feeling  ;  and  that  we  can  increase  or  de- 
stroy both  of  these  at  our  will.  By  care  and  tenderness, 
we  can  extend  the  range  of  lovely  life  in  plants  and  ani- 
mals ;  by  our  neglect  and  cruelty,  we  can  arrest  it,  and 
bring  pestilence  in  its  stead.  Again,  by  right  discipline 
we  can  increase -our  strength  of  noble  will  and  passion,  or 
destroy  both.  And  whether  these  two  forces  are  local  con- 
ditions of  the  elements  in  which  they  appear,  or  are  part 
of  a  great  force  in  the  universe,  out  of  which  they  are 
taken,  and  to  which  they  must  be  restored,  is  not  of  the 
slightest  importance  to  us  in  dealing  with  them ;  neither 
is  the  manner  of  their  connection  with  light  and  air. 
What  precise  meaning  we  ought  to  attach  to  expressions 


ATHENA    IN    THE    EARTH.  63 

such  as  that  of  the  prophecy  to  the  four  winds  that  the  dry 
bones  might  be  breathed  upon,  and  might  live,  or  why  the 
presence  of  the  vital  power  should  be  dependent  on  the 
chemical  action  of  the  air,  and  its  awful  passing  away 
materially  signified  by  the  rendering  up  of  that  breath  or 
ghost,  we  cannot  at  present  know,  and  need  not  at  any 
time  dispute.  "What  we  assuredly  know  is  that  the  states 
of  life  and  death  are  different,  and  the  first  more  desirabh 
than  the  other,  and  by  effort  attainable,  whether  we  un- 
derstand being  "  born  of  the  spirit"  to  signify  having  tli€ 
breath  of  heaven  in  our  flesh,  or  its  power  in  our  hearts. 

56.  As  to  its  power  on  the  body,  I  will  endeavor  to  teh 
you,  having  been  myself  much  led  into  studies  involving 
necessary  reference  both  to  natural  science  and  mental 
phenomena,  what,  at  least,  remains  to  us  after  science  has 
done  its  worst ; — what  the  Myth  of  Athena,  as  a  Forma 
tive  and  Decisive  power — a  Spirit  of  Creation  and  Voli- 
tion, must  eternally  mean  for  all  of  us. 

57.  It  is  now  (I  believe  I  may  use  the  strong  word) 
"  ascertained"  that  heat  and  motion  are  fixed  in  quantity, 
and  measurable  in  the  portions  that  we  deal  with.  'We 
can  measure  out  portions  of  power,  as  we  can  measure  por- 
tions of  space ;  while  yet,  as  far  as  we  know,  space  may  bo 
infinite,  and  force  infinite.  There  may  be  heat  as  much 
greater  than  the  sun's,  as  the  sun's  heat  is  greater  than  a 
candle's;  and  force  as  much  greater  than  the  force  by 
which  the  world  swings,  as  that  is  greater  tlian  the  force 
by  which  a  cobweb  trembles.     Now,  on  heat  and  force, 


64  THE    QUEEN    OF    THE    AIR. 

life  is  inseparably  dependent ;  and  I  believe,  also,  on  a 
form  of  substance,  which  the  philosophers  call  "proto- 
plasm." I  wish  they  would  use  English  instead  of  Greek 
words.  When  I  want  to  know  why  a  leaf  is  green,  they 
tell  me  it  is  coloured  by  "  chlorophyll,"  which  at  first  sounds 
very  instructive ;  but  if  they  would  only  say  plainly  that 
a  leaf  is  coloured  green  by  a  thing  which  is  called  "  greei1 
leaf,"  we  should  see  more  precisely  how  far  we  had  got 
However,  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  life  is  connected  with  a 
cellular  structure  called  protoplasm,  or,  in  English,  "first 
stuck  together :"  whence,  conceivably  through  deutero- 
plasms,  or  second  stickings,  and  tritoplasms,  or  third  stick- 
j'lgs,*  we  reach  the  highest  plastic  phase  in  the  human 
pottery,  which  differs  from  common  chinaware,  primarily,, 
by  a  measurable  degree  of  heat,  developed  in  breathing, 
which  it  borrows  from  the  rest  of  the  universe  while  it 
lives,  and  which  it  as  certainly  returns  to  the  rest  of  the 
universe,  when  it  dies. 

58.  Again,  with  this  h  at   certain  assimilative  powers 
are  connected,  which  the  tendency  of  recent  discovery  is  to 

*  Or,  perhaps,  we  may  be  indulged  with  one  consummating  gleam 
of  "glycasm" —  visible  "Sweetness,"  —  according  to  the  good  old 
monk  "  Full  moon,"  or  "  All  moonshine."  I  cannot  get  at  his  original 
Greek,  but  am  content  with  M.  Durand's  clear  French  (Manuel  d'lco- 
nographie  Chretienne.  Paris,  1845) : — "  Lorsque  vous  aurez  fait  le 
proplasme,  et  esquisse  un  visage,  vous  ferez  les  chairs  avec  le  glycasme 
dont  nous  avons  donne  la  recette.  Chez  les  vieillards,  vous  indiquere* 
les  rides,  et  chez  les  jeunes  gens,  les  angles  des  yeux.  CVet  ainsi  q» 
I'on  fait  les  chairs,  suivant  Panselinos." 


ATHENA    IN    THE    EAJRTH.  65 

simplify  more  and  more  into  modes  of  one  force  ;  or  finallv 
into  mere  motion,  communicable  in  various  states,  but  not 
destructible.  We  will  assume  that  science  has  done  its 
utmost  ;  and  that  every  chemical  or  animal  force  is 
demonstrably  resolvable  into  heat  or  motion,  reciprocally 
changing  into  each  other.  I  would  myself  like  better,  in 
order  of  thought,  to  consider  motion  as  a  mode  of  heat  than 
heat  as  a  mode  of  motion  :  still,  granting  that  we  have  got 
thus  far,  we  have  yet  to  ask,  What  is  heat  ?  or  what 
motion?  What  is  this  "  primo  mobile,"  this  transitional 
power,  in  which  all  things  live,  and  move,  and  have  their 
being?  It  is  by  definition  something  different  from  mat- 
ter, and  we  may  call  it-as  we  choose — "first  cause,"  or 
"  first  light,"  or  "  first  heat  ;  "  but  we  can  show  no  scien- 
tific proof  of  its  not  being  personal,  and  coinciding  with 
•the  ordinary  conception  of  a  supporting  spirit  in  all  things. 

59.  Still,  it  is  not  advisable  to  apply  the  word  "  spirit " 
or  "breathing"  to  it,  while  it  is  only  enforcing  chemical 
affinities ;  but,  when  the  chemical  affinities  are  brought 
under  the  influence  of  the  air,  and  of  the  sun's  heat,  the 
formative  force  enters  an  entirely  different  phase.  It  does 
not  now  merely  crystallize  indefinite  masses,  but  it  gives 
to  limited  portions  of  matter  the  power  of  gathering, 
selectively,  other  elements  proper  to  them,  and  binding 
these  elements  into  their  own  peculiar  and  adopted  form. 

This  force,  now  properly  called  life,  or  breathing,  or 
spirit,  is  continually  creating  its  own  shells  of  definite 
shape  out  of  the  wreck  round  it :  and  this  is  what  I  meant 


66  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

by  saying,  in  the  "Ethics  of  the  Dust:" — "you  may 
always  stand  by  form  against  force."  For  the  mere  force 
of  junction  is  not  spirit ;  but  the  power  that  catches  out  of 
chaos  charcoal,  water,  lime,  or  what  not  and  fastens  them 
down  into  a  given  form,  is  properly  called  "  spirit ;  "  and 
we  shall  not  diminish,  but  strengthen  our  conception  of 
this  creative  energy  by  recognizing  its  presence  in  lower 
states  of  matter  than  our  own  ; — such  recognition  being 
enforced  upon  us  by  a  delight  we  instinctively  receive 
from  all  the  forms  of  matter  which  manifest  it ;  and  yet 
more,  by  the  glorifying  of  those  forms,  in  the  parts  of  them 
that  are  most  animated,  with  the  colours  that  are  pleasant- 
est  to  our  senses.  The  most  familiar  instance  of  this  is 
the  best,  and  also  the  most  wonderful :  the  blossoming  of 
plants. 

60.  The  Spirit  in  the  plant, — that  is  to  say,  its  power 
of  gathering  dead  matter  out  of  the  wreck  round  it,  and 
shaping  it  into  its  own  chosen  shape, — is  of  course  strong- 
est at  the  moment  of  its  flowering,  for  it  then  not  only 
gathers,  but  forms,  with  the  greatest  energy. 

And  where  this  Life  is  in  it  at  full  power,  its  form 
becomes  invested  with  aspects  that  are  chiefly  delightful 
to  our  own  human  passions ;  namely,  first,  with  the  love- 
liest outlines  of  shape ;  and,  secondly,  with  the  most 
brilliant  phases  of  the  primary  colours,  blue,  yellow',  and 
red  or  white,  the  unison  of  all ;  and,  to  make  it  all  more 
strange,  this  time  of  peculiar  and  perfect  glory  is  associated 
with  relations    }f  the  plants   or  blossoms  to  each  other, 


ATHENA   IN   THE   EARTH.  67 

correspondent  to:  the  joy  of  love  in  human  creatures,  and 
having  the  same  object  in  the  continuance  of  the  race. 
Only,  with  respect  to  plants,  as  animals,  we  are  wrong  in 
speaking  as  if  the  object  of  this  strong  life  were  only  the 
bequeathing  of  itself.  The  flower  is  the  end  or  proper 
object  of  the  seed,  not  the  seed  of  the  flower.  The  reason 
for  seeds  is  that  flowers  may  be ;  not  the  reason  of  flower9 
that  seeds  may  be.  The  flower  itself  is  the  creature 
which  the  spirit  makes  ;  only,  in  connection  with  its  per- 
fectness,  is  placed  the  giving  birth  to  its  successor. 

61.  The  main  fact,  then,  about  a  flower  is  that  it  is'  the 
part  of  the  plant's  form  developed  at  the  moment  of  ita 
intensest  life :  and  this  inner  rapture  is  usually  marked 
externally  for  us  by  the  flush  of  one  or  more  of  the  primary 
colours.  "What  the  character  of  the  flower  shall  be, 
depends  entirely  upon  the  portion  of  the  plant  into  which 
this  rapture  of  spirit  has  been  put.  Sometimes  the  life  is 
put  into  its  outer  sheath,  and  then  the  outer  sheath  be- 
comes white  and  pure,  and  full  of  strength  and  grace  ; 
sometimes  the  life  is  put  into  the  common  leaves,  just 
uuder  the  blossom,  and  they  become  scarlet  or  purple  ; 
sometimes  the  life  is  put  into  the  stalks  of  the  flower,  and 
they  flush  blue ;  sometimes  into  its  outer  enclosure  or 
calyx  ;  mostly  into  its  inner  cup ;  but,  in  all  cases,  the 
presence  of  the  strongest  life  is  asserted  by  characters  in 
which  the  human  sight  takes  pleasure,  and  which  seem 
prepared  with  distinct  reference  to  us,  or  rather,  bear,  in 
being  delightful,  evidence  of  having  been  produced  by  th« 
power  of  the  same  spirit  as  our  own. 


68   '  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIR. 

62.  And  we  are  led  to  feel  this  still  more  strongly 
because  all  the  distinctions  of  species,"  both  in  plants  and 
animals,  appear  to  have  similar  connection  with  hmnar 
character.  "Whatever  the  origin  of  species  may  be,  or  how- 
ever those  species,  once  formed,  may  be  influenced  by 
external  accident,  the  groups  into  which  birth  or  accident 
reduce  them  have  distinct  relation  to  the  spirit  of  man. 
It  is  perfectly  possible,  and  ultimately  conceivable,  that 
the  crocodile  and  the  lamb  may  have  descended  from  the 
same  ancestral  atom  of  protoplasm  ;  and  that  the  physical 
laws  of  the  operation  of  calcareous  slime  and  of  meadow 
grass,  on  that  protoplasm,  may  in  time  have  developed 
the  opposite  natures  and  aspects  of  the  living  frames;  but 
the  practically  important  fact  for  us  is  the  existence  of  a 
power  which  creates  that  calcareous  earth  itself; — which 
creates,  that  separately — and  quartz,  separately  ;  and  gold, 
separately ;  and  charcoal,  separately  ;  and  then  so  directs 
the  relation  of  these  elements  as  that  the  gold  shall  destroy 
the  souls  of  men  by  being  yellow  ;  and  the  charcoal  destroy 
their  souls  by  being  hard  and  bright ;  and  the  quartz  rep- 
resent to  them  an  ideal  purity  ;  and  the  calcareous  earth, 
soft,  shall  beget  crocodiles,  and  dry  and  hard,  sheep ;  and 

*  The  facts  on  which  I  am  about  to  dwell  are  in  nowise  antagonistic 
to  the  theories  which  Mr.  Darwin's  unwearied  and  unerring  investiga- 
tions are  every  day  rendering  more  probable.  The  aesthetic  relations 
of  species  are  independent  of  their  origin.  Nevertheless,  it  has  always 
seemed  to  me,  in  what  little  work  I  have  done  upon  organic  forms,  as 
if  the  species  mocked  us  by  their  deliberate  imitation  of  each  other 
when  they  met :  yet  did  not  pass  one  into  another. 


ATHENA    IN   THE    EARTH.  69 

that  the  aspects  and  qualities  of  these  two  products,  croco- 
diles and  lambs,  shall  be,  the  one  repellent  to  the  spirit  of 
man,  the  other  attractive  to  it,  in  a  quite  inevitable  way  - 
representing  to  him  states  of  moral  evil  and  good ;  and 
becoming  myths  to  him  of  destruction  or  redemption,  and, 
in  the  most  literal  sense,  "  words  "  of  God. 

63.  And  the  force  of  these  facts  cannot  be  escaped  from 
by  the  thought  that  there  are  species  innumerable,  passing 
into  each  other  by  regular  gradations,  out  of  which  we 
choose  what  we  most  love  or  dread,  and  say  they  were 
indeed  prepared  for  us.  Species  are  not  innumerable ; 
neither  are  they  now  connected  by  consistent  gradation 
They  touch  at  certain  points  only  ;  and  even  then  are  con- 
nected, when  we  examine  them  deeply,  in  a  kind  of  reti- 
culated way,  not  in  chains,  but  in  chequers ;  also,  how- 
ever connected,  it  is 'but  by  a  touch  of  the  extremities,  aa 
it  were,  and  the  characteristic  form  of  the  species  is  entirely 
individual.  The  rose  nearly  sinks  into  a  grass  in  the  san- 
guisorba ;  but  the  formative  spirit  does  not  the  less  clearly 
separate  the  ear  of  wheat  from  the  dog-rose,  and  oscillate 
with  tremulous  constancy  round  the  central  forms  of  both, 
having  each  their  due  relation  to  the  mind  of  man.  The 
great  animal  kingdoms  are  connected  in  the  same  way. 
The  bird  through  the  penguin  drops  towards  the  fish,  and 
the  fish  in  the  cetacean  reascends  to  the  mammal,  yet 
there  is  no  confusion  of  thought  possible  between  the  per- 
fect forms  of  an  eagle,  a  trout,  and  a  war-horse,  in  theii 
relations  to  the  elements,  and  to  man. 


70  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR 

64:.  ISTow  we  have  two  orders  of  animals  to  take  some 
note  of  in  connection  with  Athena,  and  one  vast  order  of 
plants,  which  will  illustrate  this  matter  very  sufficiently 
for  us. 

The  orders  of  animals  are  the  serpent  and  the  hird  ;  the 
serpent,  in  which  the  breath  or  spirit  is  less  thau  in  anv 
other  creature,  and  the  earth-power  greatest : — the  bird, 
in  which  the  breath  or  spirit  is  more  full  than  in  any  other 
creature,  and  the  earth  power  least. 

65.  We  will  take  the  bird  first.  It  is  little  more  than 
a  drift  of  the  air  brought  into  form  by  plumes  ;  the  air  is 
in  all  its  quills,  it  breathes  through  its  whole  frame  and 
flesh,  and  glows  with  air  in  its  flying,  like  blown  flame : 
it  rests  upon  the  air,  subdues  it,  surpasses  it,  outraces  it ; 
■ — is  the  air,  conscious  of  itself,  conquering  itself,  ruling 
itself. 

Also,  into  the  throat  of  the  bird  is  given  the  voice  of  the 
air.  All  that  in  the  wind  itself  is  weak,  wild,  useless  in 
sweetness,  is  knit  together  in  its  song.  As  we  may  ima- 
gine the  wild  form  of  the  cloud  closed  into  the  perfect  form 
of  the  bird's  wings,  so  the  wild  voice  of  the  cloud  into  its 
ordered  and  commanded  voice ;  unwearied,  rippling  through 
the  clear  heaven  in  its  gladness,  interpreting  all  intense 
passion  through  the  soft  spring  nights,  bursting  into  acclaim 
and  rapture  of  choir  at  daybreak,  or  lisping  and  twitter 
ing  among  the  boughs  and  hedges  through  heat  of  day, 
like  little  winds  that  only  make  the  cowslip  be^s  shake, 
and  ruffle  the  petals  of  the  wild  rose. 


ATHENA   IN   THE   EARTH.  71 

$G.  Also,  upon  the  plumes  of  the  bird  are  put  the  col- 
ours of  the  air  :  on  these  the  gold  of  the  cloud,  that  can- 
not be  gathered  by  any  covetousness  ;.  the  rubies  of  the 
clouds,  that  are  not  the  price  of  Athena,  but  are  Athena  ; 
the  vermilion  of  the  cloud-bar,  and  the  flame  of  the  cloud- 
crest,  and  the  snow  of  the  cloud,  and  its  shadow,  and  the 
melted  blue  of  the  deep  wells  of  the  sky — all  these,  seized 
by  the  creating  spirit,  and  woven  by  Athena  herself  into 
films  and  threads  of  plume  ;  with  wave  on  wave  following 
and  fading  along  breast,  and  throat,  and  opened  wings, 
infinite  as  the  dividing  of  the  foam  and  the  sifting  of  the 
sea-sand ; — even  the  white  down  of  the  cloud  seeming  to 
flutter  up  between  the  stronger  plumes,  seen,  but  too  soft 
for  touch. 

And  so  the  Spirit  of  the  Air  is  put  into,  and  upon,  this 
created  form;  and  it  becomes,  through  twenty  centuries, 
the  symbol  of  divine  help,  descending,  as  the  Fire,  to  speak, 
but  as  the  Dove,  to  bless. 

67.  Next,  in  the  serpent,  we  approach  the  source  of  a 
group  of  myths,  world- wide,  founded  on  great  and  com- 
mon human  instincts,  respecting  which  I  must  note  one 
or  two  points  which  bear  intimately  on  all  our  subject. 
For  it  seems  to  me  that  the  scholars  who  are  at  present 
occupied  in  interpretation  of  human  myths  have  most  of 
them  forgotten  that  there  are  any  such  tilings  as  natural 
myths;  and  that  the  dark  sayings  of  men  maybe  both 
difficult  to  read,  and  not  always  worth  reading;  but  the 
dark  sayings  of  nature  will  probably  become  clearer  for 


72  THE    QUEEN    OF  THE   AIR. 

the  looking  into,  and  will  very  certainly  be  worth  reading 
And,  indeed,  all  guidance  to  the  right  sense  of  the  human 
and  variable  myths  will  probably  depend  on  our  first 
getting  at  the  sense  of  the  natural  and  invariable  ones. 
The  dead  hieroglyph  may  have  meant  this  or  that — the 
living  hieroglyph  means  always  the  same ;  but  remember, 
it  is  just  as  much  a  hieroglyph  as  the  other;  nay,  more, — 
a  "sacred  or  reserved  sculpture,"  a  thing  with  an  inner 
language.  The  serpent  crest  of  the  king's  crown,  or  of 
the  god's,  on  the  pillars  of  Egypt,  is  a  mystery ;  but  the 
Berpent  itself,  gliding  past  the  pillar's  foot,  is  it  less  a 
mystery?  Is  there,  indeed,  no  tongue,  except  the  mute 
forked  flash  from  its  lips,  in  that  running  brook  of  horror 
on  the  ground  ? 

68.  Why  that  horror?  "We  all  feel  it,  yet  how  imagi- 
native it  is,  how  disproportioned  to  the  real  strength  of  the 
creature !  There  is  more  poison  in  an  ill-kept  drain, — in 
a  pool  of  dish-washings  at  a  cottage-door,  than  in  the 
deadliest  asp  of  Nile.  Every  back-yard  which  you  look 
down  into  from  the  railway,  as  it  carries  you  out  by 
Yauxhall  or  Deptford,  holds  its  coiled  serpent:  all  the 
walls  of  those  ghastly  suburbs  are  enclosures  of  tank 
temples  for  serpent-worship;  yet  you  feel  no  horror  in 
looking  down  into  them,  as  you  would  if  you  saw  the 
livid  scales,  and  lifted  head.  There  is  more  venom, 
mortai,  inevitable,  in  a  single  word,  sometimes,  or  in  the- 
gliding  entrance  of  a  wordless  thought,  than  ever  "  vanti 
Libia  con  sua  rena."     But  that  horror  is  of  the  myth,  nol 


ATHENA   IN   THE    EARTH.  73 

of  the  creature.  There  are  myriads  lower  than  this,  and 
more  loathsome,  in  the  scale  of  being;  the  links  between 
dead  matter  and  animation  drift  everywhere  unseen. 
But  it  is  the  strength  of  the  base  element  that  is  so  dread- 
ful in  the  serpent ;  it  is  the  very  omnipotence  of  the 
earth.  That  rivulet  of  smooth  silver — how  does  it  flow, 
think  you  ?  It  literally  rows  on  the  earth,  with  every 
scale  for  an  oar ;  it  bites  the  dust  with  the  ridges  of  its 
body.  Watch  it,  when  it  moves  slowly: — A  wave,  but 
without  wind!  a  current,  but  with  no  fall!  all  the  body 
moving  at  the  same  instant,  yet  some  of  it  to  one  side, 
some  to  another,  or  some  forward,  and  the  rest  of  the  coil 
backwards ;  but  all  with  the  same  calm  will  and  equal 
way — no  contraction,  no  extension ;  one  soundless,  cause- 
less, march  of  sequent  rings,  and  spectral  procession  of 
spotted  dust,  with  dissolution  in  its  fangs,  dislocation  in 
its  coils.  Startle  it ; — the  winding  stream  will  become  a 
twisted  arrow; — the  wave  of  poisoned  life  will  lash 
through  the  grass  like  a  cast  lance.*  It  scarcely  breathes 
with  its  one  lung  (the  other  shrivelled  and  abortive);  it  is 
passive  to  the  sun  and  shade,  and  is  cold  or  hot  like  a 

*  I  cannot  understand  this  swift  forward  motion  of  serpents.  The 
seizure  of  prey  by  the  constrictor,  though  invisibly  swift,  is  quite  sim- 
ple iu  mechanism;  it  is  simply  the  return  to  its  coil  of  an  opened 
watch  spring,  and  is  just  as  instantaneous.  But  the  steady  and  con- 
tinuous motion,  without  a  visible  fulcrum  (for  the  whole  body  moves  at 
the  same  instant,  and  I  have  often  seen  even  small  snakrs  glide  as  fast 
as  I  c<ml(l  walk1),  seems  to  involve  a  vibration  of  the  scales  quite  too 
rapid  to  be  conceived       The  motion   of  the  crest  and   dorsal    fin    (if 

4 


74  THE    QUEEN    OF    THE   AIR. 

stone ;  yet  "  it  can  outclimb  the  monkey,  outswim  the  fish, 
out  leap  the  zebra,  out  wrestle  the  athlete,  and  crush  tho 
tiger."*  It  is*  a  divine  hieroglyph  of  the  demoniac 
power  of  the  earth, — of  the  entire  earthly  nature.  As 
the  bird  is  the  clothed  power  of  the  air,  so  this  is 
the  clothed  power  of  the  dust ;  as  the  bird  the  sym- 
bol of  the  spirit  of  life,  so  this  of  the  grasp  and  sting 
of  death. 

69.  Hence  the  continual  change  in  the  interpretation 
put  upon  it  in  various  religions.  As  the  worm  of  corrup- 
tion, it  is  the  mightiest  of  all  adversaries  of  the  gods — the 
special  adversary  of  their  light  and  creative  power — 
Python  against  Apollo.  As  the  power  of  the  earth 
against  the  air,  the  giants  are  serpent-bodied  in  the 
Giganto-machia  ;  but  as  the  power  of  the  earth  upon  the 
seed — consuming  it  into  new  life  ("that  which  thou 
sowest  is  not  quickened  except  it  die") — serpents  sustain 
the  chariot  of  the  spirit  of  agriculture. 

TO.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  power  in  the 
earth  to  take  away  corruption,  and  to  purify,  (hence  the 
very  fact  of  burial,  and  many  uses  of  earth,  only  lately 
known);    and    in    this    sense,    the    serpent    is    a   healing 

the  hippocampus,  which  is  one  of  the  intermediate  types  between 
serpent  and  fish,  perhaps  gives  some  resemblance  of  it,  dimly  visible, 
for  the  quivering  turns  the  fin  into  a  mere  mist.  The  entrance  of  the 
two  barbs  of  a  bee's  sting  by  alternate  motion,  ''the  teeth  of  one  barb 
acting  as  a  fulcrum  for  the  other,"  must  be  something  like  the  serpent 
motion  on  a  small  scale. 
*  Richard  Owen. 


AT  KEN  A    IN   THE    EARTH.  75 

epirit, — the  representative  ot  ^Esculapius,  and  of  Hygieia ; 
and  is  a  sacred  earth-type  in  the  temple  of  the  Dew  ;— 
being  there  especially  a  symbol  of  the  native  earth  of 
Athens ;  so  that  its  departure  from  the  temple  was  a  sign 
to  the  Athenians  that  they  were  to  leave  their  homes. 
And  then,  lastly,  as  there  is  a  strength  and  healing  in  the 
earth,  no  less  than  the  strength  of  air,  so  there  is  con- 
ceived to  be  a  wisdom  of  earth  no  less  than  a  wisdom  of 
the  spirit ;  and  when  its  deadly  power  is  killed,  its 
guiding  power  becomes  true ;  so  that  the  Python  serpent 
is  killed  at  Delphi,  where  yet  the  oracle  is  from  the  breath 
of  the  earth. 

71.  You  must  remember,  however,  that  in  this,  as  in 
every  other  instance,  I  take  the  myth  at  its  central  time. 
This  is  only  the  meaning  of  the  serpent  to  the  Greek 
mind  which  could  conceive  an  Athena.  Its  first  meaning 
to  the  nascent  eyes  of  men,  and  its  continued  influence 
over  degraded  races,  are  subjects  of  the  most  fearful  mys 
tery.  Mr.  Fergusson  has  just  collected  the  principal  evi- 
dence bearing  on  the  matter  in  a  work  of  very  great  value, 
and  if  you  read  his  opening  chapters,  they  will  put  you  in 
possession  of  the  circumstances  needing  chiefly  to  be  con- 
sidered. I  cannot  touch  upon  any  of  them  here,  except 
only  to  point  out  that,  though  the  doctrine  of  the  so-called 
"corruption  of  human  nature,'1  asserting  that  there  is 
nothing  but  evil  in  humanity,  is  just  as  blasphemous  and 
false  as  a  doctrine  of  the  corruption  of  physical  nature 
would    be,  asserting  there  was   nothing  but  evil  in  the 


76  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    A  IK. 

earth, — there  is  yet  the  clearest  evidence  of  a  disease, 
plague,  or  cretinous  imperfection  of  development,  hitherto 
allowed  to  prevail  against  the  greater  part  of  the  races  of 
men ;  and  this  in  monstrous  ways,  more  full  of  mysterj 
than  the  serpent-being  itself.  I  have  gathered  for  you  to- 
night only  instances  of  what  is  beautiful  in  Greek  reli- 
gion ;  but  even  in  its  best  time  there  were  deep  corrup- 
tions in  other  phases  of  it,,  and  degraded  forms  of  many  of 
its  deities,  all  originating  in  a  misunderstood  worship  of 
the  principle  of  life ;  while  in  the  religions  of  lower  races, 
little  else  than  these  corrupted  forms  of  devotion  can  be 
found ; — all  having  a  strange  and  dreadful  consistency 
with  each  other,  and  infecting  Christianity,  even  at  its 
strongest  periods,  with  fatal  terror  of  doctrine,  and  ghast- 
liness  of  symbolic  conception,  passing  through  fear  into 
frenzied  grotesque,  and  thence  into  sensuality. 

In  the  .Psalter  of  St.  Louis  itself,  half  of  its  letters  are 
twisted  snakes  ;  there  is  scarcely  a  wreathed  ornament, 
employed  in  Christian  dress,  or  architecture,  which  cannot 
be  traced  back  to  the  serpent's  coil ;  and  there  is  rarely  a 
piece  of  monkish  decorated  writing  in  the  world,  that  is 
not  tainted  with  some  ill-meant  vileness  of  grotesque  — 
nay,  the  very  leaves  of  the  twisted  ivy-pattern  of  the  four- 
teenth century  can  be  followed  back  to  wreaths  for  the  fore 
heads  of  bacchanalian  gods.  And  truly,  it  seems  to  me, 
as  I  gather  in  my  mind  the  evidences  of  insane  religion, 
degraded  art,  merciless  war,  sullen  toil,  detestable  pleas- 
ure, and  vain  or  vile  hope,  in  which  the  nations  of  thu 


ATHENA    IN   THE    EARTH.  77 

■jvorld  have  lived  since  first  they  could  bear  record  of 
themselves — it  seems  to  me,  I  say,  as  if  the  race  itself 
were  still  half-serpent,  not  extricated  yet  from  its  clay ; 
a  lacertine  breed  of  bitterness — the  glory  of  it  emaciate 
with  cruel  hunger,  and  blotted  with  venomous  stain :  and 
the  track  of  it,  on  the  leaf  a  glittering  slime,  and  in  the 
sand  a  useless  furrow. 

72.  There  are  no  myths,  therefore,  by  which  the  mor- 
al state  and  fineness  of  intelligence  of  different  races 
can  be  so  deeply  tried  or  measured,  as  by  those  of  the  ser- 
pent and  the  bird  ;  both  of  them  having  an  especial  rela- 
tion to  the  kind  of  remorse  for  sin,  or  grief  in  fate,  of 
which  the  national  minds  that  spoke  by  them  had  been 
capable.  The  serpent  and  vulture  are  alike  emblems  of 
immortality  and  purification  among  races  which  desired 
to  be  immortal  and  pure:  and  as  they  recognize  their  own 
misery,  the  serpent  becomes  to  them  the  scourge  of  the 
Furies,  and  the  vulture  finds  its  eternal  prey  in  their 
breast.  The  bird  long  contests  among  the  Egyptians  with 
the  still  received  serpent  symbol  of  power.  But  the  Dra- 
conian image  of  evil  is  established  in  the  serpent  Apap  ; 
while  the  bird's  wings,  with  the  globe,  become  part  of  a 
better  symbol  of  deity,  and  the  entire  form  of  the  vulture, 
as  an  emblem  of  purification,  is  associated  with  the  earn- 
est conception  of  Athena.  In  the  type  of  the  dove  with 
the  olive  branch,  the  conception  of  the  spirit  of  Athena  in 
renewed  life  prevailing  over  ruin,  is  embodied  for  the 
tvhole  of  futurity:  while  the  Greeks,  to  whom,  in  a  hap 


78  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIR. 

pier  climate  and  higher  life  than  that  ol  Egypt,  the  vul 
ture  symbol  of  cleansing  became  unintelligible,  took  the 
eagle,  instead,  for  their  hieroglyph  of  supreme  spiritual 
energy,  and  it  thenceforward  retains  its  hold  on  the  hu- 
man imagination,  till  it  is  established  among  Christian 
myths  as  the  expression  of  the  most  exalted  form  of  evan- 
gelistic teaching.  The  special  relation  of  Athena  to  her 
favourite  bird  we  will  trace  presently:  the  peacock  of 
Hera,  and  dove  of  Aphrodite,  are  comparatively  unimpor- 
tant myths :  but  the  bird  power  is  soon  made  entirely  hu- 
man by  the  Greeks  in  their,  flying  angel  of  victory  (par- 
tially human,  with  modified  meaning  of  evil,  in  the  Har- 
py and  Siren)  ;  and  thenceforward  it  associates  itself  with 
the  Hebrew  cherubim,  and  has  had  the  most  singular  in- 
fluence on  the  Christian  religion  by  giving  its  wings  to 
render  the  conception  of  angels  mysterious  and  untenable, 
and  check  rational  endeavour  to  determine  the  nature  of 
subordinate  spiritual  agency;  while  yet  it  has  given  to 
that  agency  a  vague  poetical  influence  of  *  the  highest 
value  in  its  own  imaginative  way. 

73.  But  with  the  early  serpent  worship  there  was  asso- 
ciated another — that  of  the-  groves — of  which  you  will 
also  find  the  evidence  exhaustively  collected  in  Mr.  Fer- 
gusson's  work.  This  tree- worship  may  have  taken  a  dark 
form  when  associated  with  the  Draconian  one ;  or  opposed, 
as  in  Judea,  to  a  purer  faith;  but  in  itself,  I  believe,  it 
was  always  healthy,  and  though  it  retains  little  definite 
hieroglyphic  power  in  subsequent  religion,  it   becomes' 


ATHENA    IN   THE    EARTH.  79 

instead  of  symbolic,  real ;  the  flowers  and  trees  are  them 
?elves  beheld  and  beloved  with  a  half-worshipping  delight9 
which  is  always  noble  and  healthful. 

And  it  is  among  the  most  notable  indications  of  the 
\olition  of  the  animating  power,  that  we  find  the  ethical 
feigns  of  good  and  evil  set  on  these  also,  as  well  as  upon 
animals ;  the  venom  of  the  serpent,  and  in  some  respects 
its  image  also,  being  associated  even  with  the  passionless 
growth  of  the  leaf  out  of  the  ground;  while  the  distinc- 
tions of  species  seem  appointed  with  more  definite  ethical 
address  to  the  intelligence  of  man  as  their  material  pro- 
ducts become  more  useful  to  him. 

74.  I  can  easily  show  this,  and,  at  the  same  time,  make 
clear  the  relation  to  other  plants  of  the  flowers  which  espe- 
cially belong  to  Athena,  by  examining  the  natural  myths 
in  the  groups  of  the  plants  which  would  be  used  at  any 
country  dinner,  over  which  Athena  would,  in  her  simplest 
household  authority,  cheerfully  rule,  here,  in  England. 
Suppose  Horace's  favourite  dish  of  beans,  with  the  bacon; 
potatoes;  some  savoury  stuffing  of  onions  and  herbs  with 
the  meat ;  celery,  and  a  radish  or  two,  with  the  cheese ; 
nuts  and  apples  for  dessert,  and  brown  bread. 

75.  The  beans  are,  from  earliest  time,  the  most  impor- 
tant and  interesting  of  the  seeds  of  the  great  tribe  <>i 
plants  from  which  came  the  Latin  and  French  name  for 
all  kitchen  vegetables, — things  that  are  gathered  with  the 
hand — podded  seeds  that  cannot  be  reaped,  or  beaten,  01 
shaken  down,  but  must  be  gathered  green.      "Legumi- 


80  THE  QUEEN    OF   THE    AIR. 

nous"  plants,  all  of  them  having  flowers  like  butterflies, 
seeds  in  (frequently  pendent)  pods, — "laetum  siliqua  quas- 
sante  legumen" — smooth  and  tender  leaves,  divided  into 
many  minor  ones; — strange  adjuncts  of  tendril,  for  climb- 
ing (and  sometimes  of  thorn); — exquisitely  sweet,  yet 
pure,  scents  of  blossom,  and  almost  always  harmless,  if 
not  serviceable,  seeds.  It  is,  of  all  tribes  of  plants,  the 
most  definite;  its  blossoms  being  entirely  limited  in  their 
parts,  and  not  passing  into  other  forms.  It  is  also  the 
most  usefully  extended  in  range  and  scale;  familiar  in  the 
height  of  the  forest — acacia,  laburnum,  Judas-tree ;  familiar 
in  the  sown  field — bean  and  vetch  and  pea;  familiar  in 
the  pasture — in  every  form  of  clustered  clover  and  sweet 
trefoil  tracery;  the  most  entirely  serviceable  and  human 
of  all  orders  of  plants. 

76.  Next,  in  the  potato,  we  have  the  scarcely  innocent 
underground  stem  of  one  of  a  tribe  set  aside  for  evil; 
having  the  deadly  nightshade  for  its  queen,  and  including 
the  henbane,  the  witch's  mandrake,  and  the  worst  natural 
curse  of  modern  civilization — tobacco.*  And  the  strange 
thing  about  this  tribe  is,  that  though  thus  set  aside  for  evil; 
they  are  not  a  group  distinctly  separate  from  those  that 
are  happier  in  function.  There  is  nothing  in  other  tribes 
of  plants  like  the  form  of  the  bean  blossom;  but  there  is 
another  family  with  forms  and  structure  closely  connected 

*  It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  demoralizing  effect  on  the  youth  oi 
Europe  of  the  cigar,  in  enabling  them  to  pass  tl  eir  time  happily  in 
idleness. 


ATHENA    IN    THE    EARTH.  81 

with  this  venomous  one.  Examine  the  purple  and  yellow 
bloom  of  the  common  hedge  nightshade;  you  will  find  it 
constructed  exactly  like  some  of  the  forms  of  the  cycla- 
men; and,  getting  this  clue,  you  will  find  at  last  the 
whole  poisonous  and  terrible  group  to  be — sisters  of  the 
primulas ! 

The  nightshades  are,  in  fact,  primroses  with  a  curse 
upon  them;  and  a  sign  set  in  their  petals,  by  which  the 
deadly  and  condemned  flowers  may  always  be  known  from 
the  innocent  ones, — that  the  stamens  of  the  nightshades 
are  between  the  lobes,  and  of  the  primulas,  opposite  the 
lobes,  of  the  corolla. 

77.  Next,  side  by  side,  in  the  celery  and  radish,  you 
have  the  two  great  groups  of  umbelled  and  cruciferous 
plants ;  alike  in  conditions  of  rank  among  herbs :  both 
flowering  in  clusters;  but  the  umbelled  group,  flat,  the 
crucifers,  in  spires: — both  of  them  mean  and  poor  in  the 
blossom,  and  losing  what  beauty  they  have  by  too  close 
crowding: — both  of  them  having  the  most  curious  influ- 
ence on  human  character  in  the  temperate  zones  of  the 
earth,  from  the  days  of  the  parsley  crown,  and  hemlock 
drink,  and  mocked  Euripidean  chervil,  until  now:  but 
chiefly  among  the  northern  nations,  being  especially  plants 
that  are  of  some  humble  beauty,  and  (the  crucifers)  of  end- 
less use,  when  they  are  chosen  and  cultivated;  but  that 
run  to  wild  waste,  and  are  the  signs  of  neglected  ground,  in 
their  rank  or  ragged  leaves,  and  meagre  stalks,  and  pursed 

or  podded  seed  clusters.     Capable,  even  under  cultivation, 

4* 


82  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    ATR. 

of  no  perfect  beauty,  though  reaching  some  subdued 
delightfulness  in  the  lady's  smock  and  the  wallflower;  foi 
the  most  part,  they  have  every  floral  quality  meanly,  and 
in  vain, — they  are  white,  without  purity;  golden,  without 
preciousness ;  redundant,  without  richness;  divided,  with- 
out fineness;  massive,  without  strength;  and  slender 
"without  grace.  Yet  think  over  that  useful  vulgarity  of 
theirs ;  and  of  the  relations  of  German  and  English  peas- 
ant character  to  its  food  of  kraut  and  cabbage,  (as  of  Arab 
character  to  its  food  of  palm-fruit,)  and  you  will  begin  to 
feel  what  purposes  of  the  forming  spirit  are  in  these  dh 
tinctions  of  species. 

78.  Next  we  take  the  nuts  and  apples, — the  nuts  repre- 
senting one  of  the  groups  of  catkined  trees,  whose  blossoms 
are  only  tufts  and  dust ;  and  the  other,  the  rose  tribe,  in 
■which  fruit  and  flower  alike  have  been  the  types,  to  the 
highest  races  of  men,  of  all  passionate  temptation,  or  pure 
delight,  from  the  coveting  of  Eve  to  the  crowning  of  the 
Madonna,  above  the 

"  Rosa  sempiterna, 
Che  si  dilata,  rigrada,  e  ridole 
Odor  di  lode  al  Sol." 

"We  have  no  time  now  for  these,  we  must  go  on  to  the 
humblest  group  of  all,  yet  the  most  wonderful,  that  of  the 
grass,  which  has  given  us  our  bread  ;  and  from  that  we 
"will  go  back  to  the  herbs. 

79.  The  vast  family  of  .plants  which,  under  rain,  make 
the  earth  green  for  man,  and,  under  sunshine,  give  him 


ATHENA   EST   THE    HEAVENS.  83 

bread,  and,  in  their  springing  in  the  early  year,  mixed  with 
their  native  flowers,  have  given  us  (far  more  than  the  new 
leaves  of  trees)  the  thought  and  word  of  "  spring,"  divide 
themselves  broadly  into  three  great  groups — the  grasses, 
sedges,  and  rushes.  The  grasses  are  essentially  a  clothing 
for  healthy  and  pure  ground,  watered  by  occasional  rain, 
but  in  itself  dry,  and  fit  for  all  cultivated  pasture  and  corn. 
They  are  distinctively  plants  with  round  and  jointed  stems, 
which  have  long  green  flexible  leaves,  an  oV  heads  of  seed, 
independently  emerging  from  them.  The  sedges  are 
essentially  the  clothing  of  waste  and  more  or  less  poor  or 
uncultivable  soils,  coarse  in  their  structure,  frequently 
triangular  in  stem — hence  called  "  acute  "  by  Virgil — and 
with  their  heads  of  seed  not  extricated  from  their  leaves. 
Now,  in  both  the  sedges  and  grasses,  the  blossom  has  a 
.common  structure,  though  undeveloped  in  the  sedges,  but 
composed  always  of  groups  of  double  husks,  which  have 
mostly  a  spinous  process  in  the  centre,  sometimes  project- 
ing into  a  long  awn  or  beard  ;  this  central  process  being 
characteristic  also  of  the  ordinary  leaves  of  mosses,  as  if 
a  moss  were  a  kind  of  ear  of  corn  made  permanently  green 
on  the  ground,  aud  with  a  new  and  distinct  fructification. 
Lut  the  rushes  differ  wholly  from  the.  sedge  and  grass  in 
their  blossom  structure.  It  is  not  a  dual  cluster,  but  a 
twice  threefold  one,  so  far  separate  from  th 3  grasses,  and 
so  closely  connected  with  a  higher  order  of  plants,  that  I 
think  you  will  find  it  convenient  to  group  the  rushes  at 
once  with  that  higher  order,  to  which,  if  you  will  for  the 


84:  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

present  let  me  give  the  general  name  of  Drosidse,  or  dew' 
plants,  it  will  enable  me  to  say  what  I  have  to  say  of  them 
much  more  shortly  and  clearly. 

80.  These  Drosidse,  then,  are  plants  delighting  in  inter- 
rupted moisture — moisture  which  comes  either  partially 
or  at  certain  seasons — into  dry  ground.  They  are  not 
water-plants  ;  but  the  signs  of  water  resting  among  dry 
places.  Many  of  the  true  water-plants  have  triple  blos- 
soms, with  a  osmall-  triple  calyx  holding  them  ;  in  the 
Drosidae,  the  floral  spirit  passes  into  the  calyx  also,  and 
the  entire  flower  becomes  a  six-rayed  star,  bursting  out  of 
the  stem  laterally,  as  if  it  were  the  first  of  flowers,  and 
had  made  its  way  .to  the  light  by  force  through  the  un- 
willing green.  They  are  often  required  to  retain  moisture 
or  nourishment  for  the  future  blossom  through  long  times 
of  drought;  and  this  they  do  in  bulbs  underground,  of. 
which  some  become  a  rude  and  simple,  but  most  whole- 
some, food  for  man. 

81.  So  now,  observe,  you  are  to  divide  the  whole  family 
of  the  herbs  of  the  field  into  three  great  groups — Drosidse, 
Carices,*  Graminese — dew-plants,  sedges,  and  grasses. 
Then,  the  Drosidse  are  divided  into  five  great  orders — 
lilies,  asphodels,  amaryllids,  irids,  and  rushes.  No  tribes  of 
flowers  have  had  so  great,  so  varied,  or  so  healthy  an 
influence  on  man  as  this  great  group  of  Drosidse,  depending, 

*  I  think  Carex  will  be  found  ultimately  better  than  Cyperus  for  the 
generic  name,  being  the  Virgilian  word,  and  represer  ting  a  larger  sub- 
species. 


ATHENA    IN    THE    EARTH.  85 

not  so  much  on  the  whiteness  of  some  of  their  blossoms, 
or  the  radiance  of  others,  as  on  the  strength  and  delicacy 
of  the  substance  of  their  petals;  enabling  them  to  take 
forms  of  faultless  elastic  curvature,  either  in  cups,  as  the 
crocus,  or  expanding  bells,  as  the  true  lily,  or  heath-likt 
bells,  as  the  hyacinth,  or  bright  and  perfect  stars,  like  the 
star  of  Bethlehem,  or,  when  they  are  affected  by  the  strange 
reflex  of  the  serpent  nature  which  forms  the  labiate  group 
of  all  flowers,  closing  into  forms  of  exquisitely  fantastic 
symmetry  in  the  gladiolus.  Put  by  their  side  their 
Nereid  sisters,  the  water-lilies,  and  you  have  in  them  the 
origin  of  the  loveliest  forms  of  ornamental  design,  and  the 
most  powerful  floral  myths  yet  recognized  among  human 
spirits,  born  by  the  streams  of  Ganges,  Nile,  Arno,  and 
Avon. 

82.  For  consider  a  little  what  each  of  those  five  tribes* 
has  been  to  the  spirit  of  man.  First,  in  their  nobleness  : 
the  Lilies  gave  the  lily  of  the  Annunciation;  the  Aspho- 
dels, the  flower  of  the  Elysian  fields  ;  the  Irids,  the  fleur- 
de-lys  of  chivalry  ;  and  the  Amaryllids,  Christ's  lily  of  the 
field  :  while  the  rush,  trodden  always  under  foot,  became 
the  emblem  of  humility.  Then  take  each  of  the  tribes,  and 
consider  the  extent  of  their  lower  influence.     -Perdita's 

*  Take  this  rough  distinction  of  the  four  tribes  : — Lilies,  superior 

ovary,    white  seeds  ;  Asphodels,  superior  ovary,  black  seeds  ;    Irids, 

inferior  ovary,   style  (typically)  rising  into  central  crest  ;  Amaryllids, 

r  ovary,  stamens   (typically)  joined  in  central  cup.     Then  the 

rushes  are  a  dark  group,  through  which  they  stoop  to  the  grasses 


86  THE    QUEEN^OF   THE    AIR. 

•'The  crown  imperial,  lilies  of  all  kinds,"  are  the  first 
tribe;  which,  giving  the  type  of  perfect  purity  in  tin 
Madonna's  lily,  have,  by  their  lovely  form,  influenced  the 
entire  decorative  design  of  Italian  sacred  art;  while  orna- 
ment of  war  was  continually  enriched  by  the  curves  of  the 
triple  petals  of  the  Florentine  "  giglio,"  and  French  fieur- 
de-lys ;  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  count  their  influence  for 
good  in  the  middle  ages,  partly  as  a  symbol  of  womanly 
character,  and  partly  of  the  utmost  brightness  and  refine- 
ment of  chivalry  in  the  city  which  was  the  flower  of  cities. 

Afterwards,  the  group  of  the  turban-lilies,  or  tulips,  did 
some  mischief,  (their  splendid  stains  having  made  them 
the  favourite  caprice  of  florists ;)  but  they  may  be  pardoned 
all  such  guilt  for  the  pleasure  they  have  given  in  cottago 
gardens,  and  are  yet  to  give,  when  lowly  life  may  again 
be  possible  among  us  ;  and  the  crimson  bars  of  the  tulips 
in  their  trim  beds,  with  their  likeness  in  crimson  bars  of 
morning  above  them,  and  its  dew  glittering  heavy,  globed 
in  their  glossy  cups,  may  be  loved  better  than  the  gray 
nettles  of  the  ash  heap,  under  gray  sky,  un veined  by  ver- 
milion or  by  gold. 

83.  The  next  great  group,  of  the  Asphodels,  divides  itself 
also  into  two  principal  families;  one,  in  which  the  flowers 
are  like  stars,  and  clustered  characteristically  in  balls, 
though  opening  sometimes  into  looser  heads ;  and  the 
other,  in  which  the  flowers  are  in  long  bells,  opening  sud- 
denly at  the  lips,  and  clustered  in  spires  on  a  long  stem,  01 
drooping  from  it,  when  bent  by  their  weight. 


ATHENA    IN   THE   EARTH.  87 

The  star-group,  of  the  squills,  garlics,  and  onions,  has 
always  caused  me  great  wonder.  I  cannot  understand 
why  its  beauty,  and  serviceableness,  should  have  been  as- 
sociated with  the  rank  scent  which  has  been  really  among 
the  most  powerful  means  of  degrading  peasant  life,  and 
separating  it  from  that  of  the  higher  classes. 

The  belled  group,  of  the  hyacinth  and  convallaria,  is  as 
delicate  as  the  other  is  coarse :  the  unspeakable  azure  light 
along  the  ground  of  the  wood  hyacinth  in  English  spring ; 
the  grape  hyacinth,  which  is  in  south  France,  as  if  a  cluster 
of  grapes  and  a  hive  of  honey  had  been  distilled  and  com- 
pressed ^together  into  one  small  boss  of  celled  and  beaded 
blue ;  the  lilies  of  the  valley  everywhere,  in  each  sweet 
and  wild  recess  of  rocky  lands; — count  the  influences  of 
these  on  childish  and  innocent  life  ;  then  measure  the 
,  mythic  power  of  the  hyacinth  and  asphodel  as  connected 
with  Greek  thoughts  of  immortality  ;  finally  take  their 
useful  and  nourishing  power  in  ancient  and  modern  peasant 
life,  and  it  will  be  strange  if  you  do  not  feel  what  fixed 
relation  exists  between  the  agency  of  the  creating  spirit  in 
these,  and  in  us  who  live  by  them. 

84.  It  is  impossible  to  bring  into  any  tenable  compass 
for  our  present  purpose,  even  hints  of  the  human  inilu 
ence  of  the  two  remaining  orders  of  Amaryllids  and 
Irids  ; — only  note  this  generally,  that  while  these  in  north- 
ern countries  share  with  the  Primulas  the  fields  of  sprii.g, 
it  seems  that  in  Greece,  the  primulacese  are  not  an  ex- 
tended tribe,  while  the  crocus,  narcissus,  and  Amaryllis 


88  THE    QUEEN    OF    TI1E    AIK. 

lutea,  the  "  lily  of  the  field "  (I  suspect  also  tnat  the 
flower  whose  name  we  translate  "  violet "  was  in  truth  an 
Iris)  represented  to  the  Greek  the  first  coining  of  the 
breath  of  life  on  the  renewed  herbage ;  and  became  ii 
his  thoughts  the  true  embroidery  of  the  saffron  robe  of 
Athena.  Later  in  the  year,  the  dianthus  (which,  though 
belonging  to  an  entirely  different  race  of  plants,  has  yet 
a  strange  look  of  having  been  made  out  of  the  grasses  by 
turning  the  sheath-membrane  at  the  root  of  their  leaves 
into  a  flower,)  seems  to  scatter,  in  multitudinous  families, 
its  crimson  stars  far  and  wide.  But  the  golden  lily  and 
crocus,  together  with  the  asphodel,  retain  always  the  old 
Greek's  fondest  thoughts — they  are  only  "  golden  "  flowers 
that  are  to  burn  on  the  trees,  and  float  on  the  streams  of 
paradise. 

85.  I  have  but  one  tribe  of  plants  more  to  note  at  our 
country  feast — the  savoury  herbs ;  but  must  go  a  little 
out  of  my  way  to  come  at  them  rightly.  All  flowers 
whose  petals  are  fastened  together,  and  most  of  those 
whose  petals  are  loose,  are  best  thought  of  first  as  a 
kind  of  cup  or  tube  opening  at  the  mouth.  Sometimes 
the  opening  is  gradual,  as  in  the  convolvulus  or  campa- 
nula; oftener  there  is  a  distinct  change  of  direction  be 
tween  the  tube  and  expanding  lip,  as  in  the  primrose; 
or  even  a  contraction  under  the  lip,  making  the  tuba 
into  a  narrow-necked  phial  or  vase,  as  in  the  heaths,  but 
the  general  idea  of  a  tube  expanding  into  a  quatiefoil. 
cinquefoil,  or  sixfoil,  will  embrace  most  of  the  forms. 


ATHENA    IX    THE    EARTH.  89 

86.  Now  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that  flowers  of  this 
kind,  growing  in  close  clusters,  may,  in  process  of  time, 
have  extended  their  outside  petals  rather  than  the  in- 
terior ones  (as  the  outer  flowers  of  the  clusters  of  many 
umbellifers  actually  do),  and  thus,  elongated  and  vari- 
ously distorted  forms  have  established  themselves ;  then 
if  the  stalk  is  attached  to  the  side  instead  of  the  base 
of  the  tube,  its  base  becomes  a  spur,  and  thus  all  the 
grotesque  forms  of  the  mints,  violets,  and  larkspurs, 
gradually  might  be  composed.  But,  however  this  may 
be,  there  is  one  great  tribe  of  plants  separate  from  the 
rest,  and  of  which  the  influence  seems  shed  upon  the 
rest  in  different  degrees :  and  these  would  give  the  im- 
pression, not  so  much  of  having  been  developed  by 
change,  as  of  being  stamped  with  a  character  of  their 
own,  more  or  less  serpentine  or  dragon-like.  And  I 
think  you  will  find  it  convenient  to  call  these  generally, 
Draconidce;  disregarding  their  present  ugly  botanical 
name,  which  I  do  not  care  even  to  write  once — you  may 
take  for  their  principal  types  the  Foxglove,  Snapdragon, 
and  Calceolaria;  and  you  will  find  they  all  agree  in  a 
tendency  to  decorate  themselves  by  spots,  and  with  bos- 
ses or  swollen  places  in  their  leaves,  as  if  they  had  beeD 
touched  by  poison.  The  spot  of  the  Foxglove  is  espe- 
cially strange,  because  it  draws  the  colour  out  of  the  tis- 
sue all  around  it,  as  if  it  had  been  stung,  and  as  if  the 
central  colour  was  really  an  inflamed  spot,  with  paleness 
round.     Then  also  they  carry  to  its  extreme  the  deco- 


90  THE    QUEEN   OE   THE   AIR. 

ration  by  bulging  or  pouting  the  petal ; — often  beauti- 
fully used  by  other  flowers  in  a  minor  degree,  like  the 
beating  out  of  bosses  in  hollow  silver,  as  in  the  kalmia, 
beaten  out  apparently  in  each  petal  by  the  stamens  in- 
Btead  of  a  hammer;  or  the  borage,  pouting  inwards;  but 
the  snapdragons  and  calceolarias  carry  it  to  its  extreme. 

87.  Then  the  spirit  of  these  Draconidse  seems  to  pass 
more  or  less  into  other  flowers,  whose  forms  are  properly 
pure  vases ;  but  it  affects  some  of  them  slightly, — others 
not  at  all.  It  never  strongly  affects  the  heaths;  never 
once  the  roses;  but  it  enters  like  an  evil  spirit  into  the 
buttercup,  and  turns  it  into  a  larkspur,  with  a  black, 
spotted,  grotesque  centre,  and  a  strange,  broken  blue, 
gorgeous  and  intense,  yet  impure,  glittering  on  the  sur- 
face as  if  it  were  strewn  with  broken  glass,  and  stained 
or  darkening  irregularly  into  red.  And  then  at  last  the 
serpent  charm  changes  the  ranunculus  into  monkshood; 
and  makes  it  poisonous.  It  enters  into  the  forget-me-not, 
and  the  star  of  heavenly  turquoise  is  corrupted  into  the 
viper's  bugloss,  darkened  with  the  same  strange  red  as 
the  larkspur,  and  fretted  into  a  fringe  of  thorn  ;  it  enters, 
together  with  a  strange  insect-spirit,  into  the  asphodels, 
and  (though  with  a  greater  interval  between  the  groups,) 
they  change  into  spotted  orchidese :  it  touches  the  poppy, 
it  becomes  a  fumaria;  the  iris,  and  it  pouts  into  a  gladi- 
olus ;  the  lily,  and  it  chequers  itself  into  a  snake's-head, 
and  secreteh  in  the  deep  of  its  bell,  drops,  not  of  venom 
indeed,  but  honey-dew,  as  if  it  were  a  healing  serpent 


ATHENA   IN    THE    EARTH.  91 

For  there  is  an  iEsculapian  as  well  as  an  evil  serpentry 
among  the  Draconidse,  and  the  fairest  of  them,  the  "erba 
della  Madonna"  of  Venice,  (Linaria  Cvmbalaria,)  do 
scends  from  the  ruins  it  delights  in  to  the  herbage  at 
their  feet,  and  touches  it ;  and  behold,  instantly,  a  vast 
group  of  herbs  for  healing, — all  draconid  in  form, — spot- 
ted, and  crested,  and  from  their  lip-like  corollas  named 
"  labiatse ;"  .full  of  various  balm,  and  warm  strength  for 
healing,  yet  all  of  them  without  splendid  honour  or  per- 
fect beauty,  "ground  ivies,"  richest  when  crushed  under 
the  foot;  the  best  sweetness  and  gentle  brightness  ot 
the  robes  of  the  field, — thyme,  and  marjoram,  and  Eu- 
phrasy. 

88.  And  observe,  again  and  again,  with  respect  to  all 
these  divisions  and  powers  of  plants  ;  it  does  not  matter 
in  the  least  by  what  concurrences  of  circumstance  or 
necessity  they  may  gradually  have  been  developed  :  the 
concurrence  of  circumstance  is  itself  the  supreme  and  inex- 
plicable fact.  We  always  come  at  last  to  a  formative 
cause,  which  directs  the  circumstance,  and  mode  of  meet- 
ing it.  If  you  ask  an  ordinary  botanist  the  reason  of  the 
form  of  a  leaf,  he  will  tell  you  it  is  a  "  developed  tuber- 
cle," and  that  its  ultimate  form  "  is  owing  to  the  direc- 
tions of  its  vascular  threads."  But  what  directs  its  vascu- 
lar threads?  "They  are  seeking  for  something  they 
want,"  he  will  probably  answer.  What  made  them  want 
that?  What  made  them  seek  for  it  thus?  Seek  for  it,  in 
live  fibres  or  in  three?     Seek  for  it,  in  serration,  or  io 


92  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE   AIE. 

sweeping  curves  ?  Seek  for  it,  in  servile  tendrils,  or  im- 
petuous spray?  Seek  for  it,  in  woollen  wrinkles  rough 
with  stings,  or  in  glossy  surfaces,  green  with  pure  strength, 
and  winter] ess  delight  ? 

89.  There  is  no  answer.  But  the  sum  of  all  is,  that 
over  the  entire  surface  of  the  earth  and  its  waters,  as  influ- 
enced by  the  power  of  the  air  under  solar  light,  there  ia 
developed  a  series  of  changing  forms,  in  clouds,  plants, 
and  animals,  all  of  which  have  reference  in  their  action, 
or  nature,  to  the  human  intelligence  that  perceives  them  ; 
and  on  which,  in  their  aspects  of  horror  and  beauty,  and 
their  qualities  of  good  and  evil,  there  is  engraved  a  series 
of  myths,  or  words  of  the  forming  power,  which,  according 
to  the  true  passion  and  energy  of  the  human  race,  they 
have  been  enabled  to  read  into  religion.  And  this  form- 
ing power  has  been  by  all  nations  partly  confused  with 
the  breath  or  air  through  which  it  acts,  and  partly  under- 
stood as  a  creative  wisdom,  proceeding  from  the  Supreme 
Deity;  but  entering  into  and  inspiring  all  intelligences 
that  work  in  harmony  with  Him.  And  whatever  intel- 
lectual results  may  be  in  modern  days  obtained  by  regard- 
ing this  effluence  only  as  a  motion  of  vibration,  every 
formative  human  art  hitherto,  and  the  best  states  of 
human  happiness  and  order,  have  depended  on  the  appre- 
hension of  its  mystery  (which  is  certain),  and  of  its  per- 
sonality, which  is  probable. 

90.  01  its  influence  on  the  formative  arts,  I  have  a  tew 
words  to  say  separately :  my  present  business  is  only  to 


ATHENA    IN    THE    EARTH.  93 

interpret,  as  we  are  now  sufficiently  enabled  to  do,  the 
external  symbols  of  the  myth  under  which  it  was  repre- 
sented by  the  Greeks  as  a  goddess  of  counsel,  taken  first 
into  the  breast  of  their  supreme  Deity,  then  created  out 
of  his  thoughts,  and  abiding  closely  beside  him ;  always 
sharing  and  consummating  his  power. 

91.  And  in  doing  this  we  have  first  to  note  the  mean 
ing  of  the  principal  epithet  applied  to  Athena,  "  Glau- 
kopis,"  "  with  eyes  full  of  light,"  the  first  syllable  being 
connected,  by  its  root,  with  words  signifying  sight,  not 
with  words  signifying  colour.  As  far  as  I  can  trace  the 
colour  perception  of  the  Greeks,  I  find  it  all  founded  pri- 
marily on  the  degree  of  connection  between  colour  and 
light ;  the  most  important  fact  to  them '  in  the  colour  of 
red  being  its  connection  with  fire  and  sunshine;  so  that 
"  purple  "  is,  in  its  original  sense,  "  fire-colour,"  and  the 
scarlet,  or  orange,  of  dawn,  more  than  any  other  fire- 
colour.  I  was  long  puzzled  by  Homer's  calling  the  sea 
purple ;  and  misled  into  thinking  he  meant  the  colour  of 
cloud  shadows  on  green  sea  ;  whereas  he  really  means  the 
gleaming  blaze  of  the  waves  under  wide  light.  Aristotle's 
idea  (partly  true)  is  that  light,  subdued  by  blackness, 
becomes  red ;  and  blackness,  heated  or  lighted,  also 
becomes  red.  Thus,  a  colour  may  be  called  purple 
because  it  is  light  subdued  (and  so  death  is  called  "  pur- 
ple "  or  "  shadowy  "  death) ;  or  else  it  may  be  called  purple 
as  being  shade  kindled  with  fire,  and  thus  said  of  the 
lighted  sea ;  or  even  of  the  sun  itself,  when  it  is  thought 


94  THE    QUEEN   OF  THE   AIR. 

of  as  a  red  luminary  opposed  to  the  whiteness  of  the 
moon  :  "  purpureos  inter  soles,  et  Candida  lunae  sidera  ;'• 
or  of  golden  hair :  "  pro  purpureo  poenam  solvens  scele- 
rata  capillo  ; "  while  both  ideas  are  modified  by  the  influ- 
ence of  an  earlier  form  of  the  word,  which  has  nothing  tc 
do  with  fire  at  all,  but  only  with  mixing  or  staining ;  and 
then,  to  make  the  whole  group  of  thoughts  inextricably 
complex,  yet  rich  and  subtle  in  proportion  to  their  intri* 
cacy,  the  various  rose  and  crimson  colours  of  the  murex- 
dye, — the  crimson  and  purple  of  the  poppy,  and  fruit  of 
the  palm, — and  the  association  of  all  these  with  the  hue 
of  blood  ;  —  partly  direct,  partly  through  a  confusion 
between  the  word  signifying  " slaughter"  and  "palm- 
fruit  colour,"  mingle  themselves  in,  and  renew  the  whole 
nature  of  the  old  word ;  so  that,  in  later  literature,  it 
means  a  different  colour,  or  emotion  of  colour,  in  almost 
every  place  where  it  occurs ;  and  casts  forever  around  the 
reflection  of  all  that  has  been  dipped  in  its  dyes. 

92.  So  that  the  word  is  really  a  liquid  prism,  and 
stream  of  opal.  And  then,  last  of  all,  to  keep  the  whole 
history  of  it  in  the  fantastic  course  of  a  dream,  warped 
here  and  there  into  wild  grotesque,  we  moderns,  who 
have  preferred  to  rule  over  coal-mines  instead  of  the  sea 
(and  so  have  turned  the  everlasting  lamp  of  Athena  into 
a  Davy's  safety-lamp  in  the  hand  of  Britannia,  and  Athe 
nian  heavenly  lightning  into  British  subterranean 
"  damp"),  have  actually  got  our  purple  out  of  coal  instead 
of  the  sea !    And  thus,  grotesquely,  we  have  had  enforced 


ATHENA   IN   THE    EARTH.  95 

on  us  the  doubt  that  held  the  old  word  between 
blackness  and  fire,  and  have  completed  the  shadow,  and 
the  fear  of  it,  by  giving  it  a  name  from  battle,  "  Ma- 
genta." 

93.  There  is  precisely  a  similar  confusion  between 
light  and  colour  in  the  word  used  for  the  blue  of  the  eyes 
of  Athena — a  noble  confusion,  however,  brought  about  by 
the  intensity  of  the  Greek  sense  that  the  heaven  is  light, 
more  than  that  it  is  blue.  I  was  not  thinking  of  this 
when  I  wrote,  in  speaking  of  pictorial  chiaroscuro,  "  The 
6ky  is  not  blue  colour  merely  :  it  is  blue  fire,  and  cannot  be 
painted"  (Mod.  P.  iv.  p.  36) ;  but  it  was  this  that  the 
Greeks  chiefly  felt  of  it,  and  so  "  Glaukopis "  chiefly 
means  gray-eyed :  gvay  standing  for  a  pale  or  luminous 
blue;  but  it  only  means  "owl-eyed"  in  thought. of  the 
roundness  and  expansion,  not  from  the  colour  ;  this  breadth 
and  brightness  being,  again,  in  their  moral  sense  typical 
cf  the  breadth,  intensity,  and  singleness  of  the  sight  in 
prudence  ("  if  thine  eye  be  single,  thy  whole  body  shall  be 
full  of  light").  Then  the  actual  power  of  the  bird  to  see 
in  twilight  enters  into  the  type,  and  perhaps  its  general 
fineness  of  sense.  "Before  the  human  form  was  adopted, 
her  (Athena's)  proper  symbol  was  flu'  owl.  a  bird  which 
seems  to  surpass  all  other  creatures  in  acuteness  of  organic 
perception,  its  eye  being  calculated  to  observe  objects 
which  to  all  others  are  enveloped  in  darkness,  its  ear  to 
hear  sounds  distinctly^  and  its  nostrils  to  discriminate  efflu- 
via with  such  nicety  that  it  has  been  deemed  prophetic, 


96  THE    QUEEN    OF    THE    AIR. 

from  discovering  the  putridity  of  death  even  in  the  first 
stages  of  disease."  * 

I  cannot  find  anywhere  an  account  of  the  first  known 
occurrence  of  the  type ;  but,  in  the  early  ones  on  Attic 
coins,  the  wide  round  eyes  are  clearly  the  principal  things 
to  be  made  manifest. 

94.  There  is  yet,  however,  another  colour  of  great  im- 
portance in  the  conception  of  Athena — the  dark  blue  of 
her  aegis.  Just  as  the  blue  or  gray  of  her  eyes  was  con- 
ceived as  more  light  than  colour,  so  her  aegis  was  dark 
blue,  because  the  Greeks  thought  of  this  tint  more  as 
shade  than  colour,  and,  while  they  used  various  materials 
in  ornamentation,  lapislazuli,  carbonate  of  copper,  or  per- 
haps, smalt,  with  real  enjoyment  of  the  blue  tint,  it  was 
yet  in. their  minds  as  distinctly  representative  of  darkness 
as  scarlet  was  of  light,  and,  therefore,  anything  dark,f  but 

*  Payne  Knight  in  his  ' '  Inquiry  into  the  Symbolical  Language  of 
Ancient  Art,"  not  trustworthy,  being  little  more  than  a  mass  of  con- 
jectural memoranda,  but  the  heap  is  suggestive,  if  well  sifted. 

f  In  the  breastplate  and  shield  of  Atrides  the  serpents  and  bosses  are 
all  of  this  dark  colour,  yet  the  serpents  are  said  to  be  like  rainbows  ; 
but  through  all  this  splendour  and  opposition  of  hue,  I  feel  distinctly 
that  the  literal  *'  splendour,"  with  its  relative  shade,  are  prevalent  in 
the  conception  ;  and  that  there  is  always  a  tendency  to  look  through 
the  hue  to  its  cause.  And  in  this  feeling  about  colour  the  Greeks  are 
separated  from  the  eastern  nations,  and  from  the  best  designers  of 
Christian  times.  I  cannot  find  that  they  take  pleasure  in  colour  for  its 
own  sake  ;  it  may  be  in  something  more  than  colour,  or  better  ;  but  it 
is  not  in  the  hue  itself.  When  Homer  describes  cloud  breaking  from  a 
mountain  summit,  the  crags  became  visible  in  light,  not  in  colour ;  he 


ATHENA   IN    THE    EARTH.  97 

especially  the  colour  of  heavy  thunder-cloud,  was  le- 
3cribed  by  the  same  term.  The  physical  power  of  this 
darkness  of  the  Eegis,  fringed  with  lightning,  is  given  quitu 
eimply  when  Jupiter  himself  uses  it  to  overshadow  Ida 
and  the  Plain  of  Troy,  and  withdraws  it  at  the  prayer  of 
Ajax  for  light ;  and  again  when  he  grants  it  to  be  worn 

feels  only  their  flashing  out  in  bright  edges  and  trenchant  shadows  . 
above,  the  "  infinite,"  "unspeakable"  aether  is  torn  open — but  not  the 
blue  of  it.  He  has  scarcely  any  abstract  pleasure  in  blue,  or  green,  01 
gold  ;  but  only  in  their  shade  or  flame. 

I  have  yet  to  trace  the  causes  of  this  (which  will  be  a  long  tasK, 
belonging  to  art  questions,  not  to  mythological  ones) ;  but  it  is,  I 
believe,  much  connected  with  the  brooding  of  the  shadow  of  death  over 
the  Greeks  without  any  clear  hope  of  immortality.  The  restriction  of 
the  colour  on  their  vases  to  dim  red  (or  yellow)  with  black  and  white, 
is  greatly  connected  with  their  sepulchral  use,  and  with  all  the  melan- 
choly of  Greek  tragic  thought ;  and  in  this  gloom  the  failure  of 
colour-perception  is  partly  noble,  partly  base  :  noble,  in  its  earnestness, 
which  raises  the  design  of  Greek  vases  as  far  above  the  designing  of 
mere  colourist  nations  like  the  Chinese,  as  men's  thoughts  are  above 
children's  ;  and  yet  it  is  partly  base  and  earthly ;  and  inherently 
defective  in  one  human  faculty  :  and  I  believe  it  was  one  cause  of  the 
perishing  of  their  art  so  swiftly,  for  indeed  there  is  no  decline  so 
sudden,  or  down  to  such  utter  loss  and  ludicrous  depravity,  as  the  fall 
of  Greek  design  on  its  vases  from  the  fifth  to  the  third  century,  B.  c. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  pure  coloured-gift,  when  employed  for  pleasure 
only,  degrades  in  another  direction ;  so  that  among  the  Indians,  Chinese, 
and  Japanese,  all  intellectual  progress  in  art  has  been  for  ages  rendered 
impossible  by  the  prevalence  of  that  faculty  :  and  yet  it  i$,  as  I  have 
said  again  aud  again,  the  spiritual  power  of  art;  and  its  true  bright- 
ness is  the  essential  characteristic  of  all  healthy  schools. 

5 


98  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

for  a  time  ^j  Apollo,  who  is  hidden  by  its  cloud  when  he 
strikes  down  Patroclus :  but  its  spiritual  power  is  chiefly 
expressed  by  a  word  signifying  deeper  shadow  ; — the  gloom 
of  Erebus,  or  of  our  evening,  which,  when  spoken  of  the 
aegis,  signifies,  not  merely  the  indignation  of  Athena,  but 
the  entire  hiding  or  withdrawal  of  her  help,  and  beyond 
even  this,  her  deadliest  of  all  hostility, — the  darkness  by 
which  she  herself  deceives  and  beguiles  to  final  ruin  those 
to  whom  she  is  wholly  adverse ;  this  contradiction  of  her 
own  glory  being  the  uttermost  judgment  upon  human 
falsehood.  Thus  it  is  she  who  provokes  Pandarus  to  tilie 
treachery  which  purposed  to  fulfil  the  rape  of  Helen  by 
the  murder  of  her  husband  in  time  of  truce ;  and  then  the 
Greek  King,  holding  his  wounded  brother's  hand,  proph- 
esies against  Troy  the  darkness  of  the  aegis  which  shall  be 
over  all,  and  for  ever.  * 

95.  This,  then,  finally,  was  the  perfect  colour-conception 
of  Athena ; — the  flesh,  snow-white,  (the  hands,  feet,  and 
face  of  marble,  even  when  the  statue  was  hewn  roughly  in 
wood) ;  the  eyes  of  keen  pale  blue,  often  in  statues  repre- 
sented by  jewels ;  the  long  robe  to  the  feet,  crocus-coloured  ; 
and  the  aegis  thrown  over  it  of  thunderous  purple;  the 
helmet  golden,  (II.  v.  7M),  and  I  suppose  its  crest  also,  a? 
that  of  Achilles. 

If  you  think  carefully  of  the  meaning  and  character 
which  is  now  enough  illustrated  for  you  in  each  of  these 
colours    and  remember  that  the  crocus-colour  and  the  pur 

*   ipefii/iiv  AlyiSa  kSoi, — H.  iv.  l66. 


ATHENA   EST   THE   EARTH.  99 

pie  were  both  of  them  developments,  in  opposite  directions, 
of  the  great  central  idea  of  fire-colour,  or  scarlet,  you  wil 
see  that  this  form  of  the  creative  spirit  of  the  earth  is  con- 
ceived as  robed  in  the  blue,  and  purple,  and  scarlet,  the 
white,  and  the  gold,  which  have  been  recognized  for  tho 
Bacred  chord  of  colours,  from  the  day  when  the  cloud 
descended  on  a  Rock  more  mighty  than  Ida. 

96.  I  have  spoken  throughout,  hitherto,  of  the  concep- 
tion of  Athena,  as  it  is  traceable  in  the  Greek  mind;  not 
as  it  was  rendered  by  Greek  art.  It  is  matter  of  extreme 
difficulty,  requiring  a  sympathy  at  once  affectionate  and 
cautions,  and  a  knowledge  reaching  the  earliest  spring?  of 
the  religion  of  many  lands,  to  discern  through  the  imper 
fection,  and,  alas !  more  dimly  yet,  through  the  triumphs 
of  formative  art,  what  kind  of  thoughts  they  were  that 
appointed  for  it  the  tasks  of  its  childhood,  and  watched  by 
the  awakening  of  its  strength. 

The  religious  passion  is  nearly  always  vividest  when  the 
art  is  weakest ;  and  the  technical  skill  only  reaches  its* 
deliberate  splendour  when  the  ecstasy  which  gave  it  birth 
has  passed  away  for  ever.  It  is  as  vain  an  attempt  to 
reason  out  the  visionary  power  or  guiding  influence  of 
Athena  in  the  Greek  heart,  from  anything  we  now  read, 
or  possess,  of  the  work  of  Phidias,  as  it  would  be  for  the 
disciples  of  some  new  religion  to  infer  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity from  Titian's  "Assumption."  The  effective  vi- 
tality of  the  religious  conception  can  be  traced  only 
through  the  efforts  of  trembling  hands,  and  strange  plea 


100  THE    QTJEEN    OF   TUE    A1K. 

sures  of  untaught  ejes  ;  and  the  beauty  of  the  dream  ear 
no  more  be  found  in  the  lirst  symbols  by  which  it  is  ex 
pressed,  than  a  child's  idea  of  fairyland  can  be  gathered 
from  its  pencil  scrawl,  or  a  girl's  love  for  her  broken  doll 
explained  by  the  defaced  features.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Athena  of  Phidias  was,  in  very  fact,  not  so  much  the 
deity,  as  the  darling  of  the  Athenian  people.  Her  mag- 
nificence represented  their  pride  and  fondness,  more  than 
their  piety ;  and  the  great  artist,  in  lavishing  upon  her 
dignities  which  might  be  ended  abruptly  by  the  pillage 
they  provoked,  resigned,  apparently  without  regret,  the 
awe  of  her  ancient  memory ;  and  (with  only  the  careless 
remonstrance  of  a  workman  too  strong  to  be  proud,)  even 
the  perfectness  of  his  own  art.  Rejoicing  in  the  protec- 
tion of  their  goddess,  and  in  their  own  hour  of  glory,  the 
people  of  Athena  robed  her,  at  their  will,  with  the  pre- 
ciousness  of  ivory  and  gems ;  forgot  or  denied  the  dark- 
ness of  the  breastplate  of  judgment,  and  vainly  bade  its 
unappeasable  serpents  relax  their  coils  in  gold. 

97.  It  will  take  me  many  a  day  yet — -if  days,  many  01 
few,  are  given  me — to  disentangle  in  anywise  the  prond 
and  practised  disguises  of  religious  creeds  from  the  in- 
stinctive arts  which,  grotesquely  and  indecorously,  yet 
with  sincerity,  strove  to  embody  them,  or  to  relate.  But 
I  think  the  reader,  by  help  even  of  the  imperfect  indiea 
tions  already  given  to  him,  will  be  able  to  follow,  with  ;i 
continually  increasing  securit}7,  the  vestiges  of  the  Mytl: 
of  Athena  ;  and  to  reanimate  its  almost  evanescent  shade, 


ATHENA    m   THE    EARTH.  101 

by  connecting  it  with,  the  now  recognized  facts  of  existent 
nature,  which  it,  more  or  less  dimly,  reflected  and  foretold. 
I  gather  these  facts  together  in  brief  sum. 

98.  The  deep  of  air  that  surrounds  the  earth  enters  into 
union  with  the  earth  at  its  surface,  and  with  its  waters ; 
gc  as  to  be  the  apparent  cause  of  their  ascending  into  life. 
First,  it  warms  them,  and  shades,  at  once,  staying  the  heat 
of  the  sun's  rays  in  its  own  body,  but  warding  their  force 
with  its  clouds.  It  warms  and  cools  at  once,  with  traffic 
of  balm  and  frost ;  so  that  the  white  wreaths  are  with- 
drawn from  the  field  of  the  Swiss  peasant  by  the  glow  of 
Libyan  rock.  It  gives  its  own  strength  to  the  sea  ;  form? 
and  fills  every  cell  of  its  foam  ;  sustains  the  precipices, 
and  designs  the  valleys  of  its  waves ;  gives  the  gleam  to 
their  moving  under  the  night,  and  the  white  fire  to  their 
plains  under  sunrise  ;  lifts  their  voices  along  the  rocks, 
bears  above  them  the  spray  of  birds,  pencils  through  them 
the  dimpling  of  unfooted  sands.  It  gathers  out  ot  them  a 
portion  in  the  hollow  of  its  hand  :  dyes,  with  that,  the 
hills  into  dark  blue,  and  their  glaciers  with  dying  rose ; 
inlays  with  that,  for  sapphire,  the  dome  in  which  it  has  to 
Bet  the  cloud ;  shapes  out  of  that  the  heavenly  flocks : 
divides  them,  numbers,  cherishes,  bears  them  on  its  bosom, 
calls  them  to  their  journeys,  waits  by  their  rest ;  feeds 
from  them  the  brooks  that  cease  not,  and  strews  with 
them  the  dews  that  cease.  It  spins  and  weaves  theL 
fleece  into  wild  tapestry,  rends  it,  and  renews;  and  flita 
and  flames,    and    whispers,  among   the   golden    threads 


102  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE    AIR. 

thrilling  them  with  a  plectrum  of  strange  fire  that  tra 
verses  them  to  and  fro,  and  is  enclosed  in  theo  .ike  life. 

It  enters  into  the  surface  of  the  earth,  subdues  it,  and 
falls  together  with  it  into  fruitful  dust,  from  which  can  he 
moulded  flesh ;  it  joins  itself,  in  dew,  to  the  substance  of 
adamant;  and  becomes  the  green  leaf  out  of  the  dry 
ground ;  it  enters  into  the  separated  shapes  of  the  earth 
it  has  tempered,  commands  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  cur- 
rent  of  their  life,  fills  their  limbs  with  its  own  lightness, 
measures  their  existence  by  its  indwelling  pulse,  moulds 
upon  their  lips  the  words  by  which  one  soul  can  be  known 
to  another ;  is  to  them  the  hearing  of  the  ear,  and  the 
beating  of  the  heart ;  and,  passing  away,  leaves  them  to 
the  peace  that  hears  and  moves  no  more. 

99.  This  was  the  Athena  of  the  greatest  people  of  the 
days  of  old.  And  opposite  to  the  temple  of  this  Spirit 
of  the  breath,  and  life-blood,  of  man  and  of  beast,  stood, 
on  the  Mount  of  Justice,  and  near  the  chasm  which  was 
haunted  by  the  goddess-Avengers,  an  altar  to  a  God  un- 
known ; — proclaimed  at  last  to  them,  as  one  who,  indeed, 
gave  to  all  men,  life,  and  breath,  and  all  things ;  and  rain 
from  heaven,  filling  their  hearts  with  food  and  gladness  ; 
— a  God  who  had  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men 
who  dwell  on  the  face  of  all  the  earth,  and  had  determined 
the  times  of  their  fate,  and  the  bounds  of  their  habitatior 

100.  We  ourselves,  fretted  here  in  our  r  arrow  days, 
know  less,  perhaps,  in  very  deed,  than  they,  what  manner 
of  spirit  we  are  of,  or  what  manner  of  spirit  we  ignorantli 


ATHENA   EST   THE    EARTH.  103 

worship.  Have  we,  indeed,  desired  the  Desire  of  all  na 
tions  ?  and  will  the  Master  whom  we  meant  to  seek,  and 
the  Messenger  in  whom  we  thought  we  delighted,  confirm 
when  He  comes  to  His  temple, — or  not  find  in  its  midst, 
— the  tables  heavy  with  gold  for  bread,  and  the  seats  that 
are  bought  with  the  price  of  the  dove  ?  Or  is  our  own 
land  also  to  be  left  by  its  angered  Spirit ; — left  amonf 
those,  where  sunshine  vainly  sweet,  and  passionate  folly 
of  storm,  waste  themselves  in  the  silent  places  of  know- 
ledge that  has  passed  away,  and  of  tongues  that  hava 
ceased  ? 

This  only  we  may  discern  assuredly :  this,  every  true 
light  of  science,  every  mercifully-granted  power,  every 
wisely-restricted  thought,  teach  us  more  clearly  day  by 
day,  that  in  the  heavens  above,  and  the  earth  beneath, 
there  is  one  continual  and  omnipotent  pieaence  of  help, 
and  of  peace,  for  all  men  who  know  that  they  Live,  and 
remember  that  they  Die. 


III. 

ATHENA    EKGANE* 

{Athena  in  the  Heart.) 

Various  Notes  relating  to  the   Conception  of  Athena  as  the  Dirtur 
tress  of  the  Imagination  and  Will. 

101.  I  have  now  only  a  few  words  to  say,  bearing  on 
what  seems  to  me  present  need,  respecting  the  third  func- 
tion of  Athena,  conceived  as  the  directress  of  human 
passion,  resolution,  and  labour. 

Few  words,  for  I  am  not  yet  prepared  to  give  accurate 
distinction  between  the  intellectual  rule  of  Athena  and 
that  of  the  Mnses :  but,  broadly,  the  Muses,  with  their 
king,  preside  over  meditative,  historical,  and  poetic  arts, 
whose  end  is  the  discovery  of  light  or  truth,  and  the  crea- 
tion of  beauty  :  but  Athena  rules  over  moral  passion,  and 
practically  useful  art.  She  does  not  make  men  learned, 
but  prudent  and  subtle  :  she  does  not  teach  them  to  make 
their  work  beautiful,  but  to  make  it  right. 

In  different  places  of  my  writings,  and  through  many 
years  of  endeavour  to  define  the  laws  of  art,  I  have  in 
sisted  on  this  rightness  in  work,  and  on  its  connection 

*  "  Athena  the  worker,  or  having  rule  over  work."  The  name  wan 
first  given  to  her  by  the  Athenians. 


ATHENA  IN  THE  HEART.  105 

with  virtue  of  character,  in  so  many  partial  ways,  that  the 
impression  left  on  the  reader's  mind — if,  indeed,  it  wan 
ever  impressed  at  all — has  been  confused  and  uncertain 
In  beginning  the  series  of  my  corrected  works,  I  wish  this 
principle  (in  my  own  mind  the  foundation  of  every  other) 
to  be  made  plain,  if  nothing  else  is  :  and  will  try,  there- 
fore, to  make  it  so,  as  far  as,  by  any  effort,  I  can  put  it 
into  unmistakeable  words.  And,  first,  here  is  a  very 
simple  statement  of  it,  given  lately  in  a  lecture  on  the 
Architecture  of  the  Yalley  of  the  Somme,  which  will  be 
better  read  in  this  place  than  in  its  incidental  connection 
with  my  account  of  the  porches  of  Abbeville. 

102.  I  had  used,  in  a  preceding  part  of  the  lecture,  the 
expression,  "  by  what  faults "  this  Gothic  architecture 
fell.  We  continually  speak  thus  of  works  of  art.  We 
talk  of  their  faults  and  merits,  as  of  virtues  and  vices. 
What  do  we  mean  by  talking  of  the  faults  of  a  picture, 
or  the  merits  of  a  piece  of  stone  ? 

The  faults  of  a  work  of  art  are  the  faults  of  its  work- 
man, and  its  virtues  his  virtues. 

Great  art  is  the  expression  of  the  mind  of  a  great  man, 
and  mean  art,  that  of  the  want  of  mind  of  a  weak  man. 
A  foolish  person  builds  foolishly,  and  a  wise  one,  sensibly; 
a  virtuous  one,  beautifully ;  and  a  vicious  one,  basely.  If 
stone  work  is  well  put  together,  it  means  that  a  thought 
i'ul  man  planned  it,  and  a  careful  man  cut  it,  and  an 
honest  man  cemented  it.  If  it  has  too  much  ornament, 
it  means  that  its  carver  was  too  greedy  of  pleasure ;  if  too 

5* 


106  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE    AIR. 

little,  tliat  he  was  rude,  or  insensitive,  or  stupid,  and  the 
like.  So  that  when  once  you  have  learned  how  to  spell 
these  most  precious  of  all  legends, — pictures  and  build 
ings,-~}rou  may  read  the  charac.ers  of  men,  and  of  Da 
tions,  in  their  art,  as  in  a  mirror ; — nay,  as  in  a  micro 
scope,  and  magnified  a  hundredfold ;  for  the  character 
becomes  passionate  in  the  art,  and  intensifies  itself  in  all 
its  noblest  or  meanest  delights.  Nay,  not  only  as  in  a 
microscope,  but  as  under  a  scalpel,  and  in  dissection ;  for 
a  man  may  hide  himself  from  you,  or  misrepresent  him- 
self to  you,  every  other  way  ;  but  he  cannot  in  his  work : 
there,  be  sure,  you  have  him  to  the  inmost.  All  that  he 
likes,  all  that  he  sees, — all  that  he  can  do, — his  imagina- 
tion, his  affections,  his  perseverance,  his  impatience,  his 
clumsiness,  cleverness,  everything  is  there.  If  the  work  is 
a  cobweb,  you  know  it  was  made  by  a  spider ;  if  a  honey- 
comb, by  a  bee;  a  worm-cast  is  thrown  up  by  a  worm, 
and  a  nest  wreathed  by  a  bird ;  and  a  house  built  by  a 
man,  worthily,  if  he  is  worthy,  and  ignobly,  if  he  is  ignoble. 

And  always,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  as  the  made 
thing  is  good  or  bad,  so  is  the  maker  of  it. 

103.  You  all  use  this  faculty  of  judgment  more  or  less, 
whether  you  theoretically  admit  the  principle  or  not. 
Take  that  floral  gable  ;  *  you  don't  suppose  the  man  who 
built  Stonehenge  could  have  built  that,  or  that  the  man 

*  The  elaborate  pediment  above  the  central  porch  at  the  west  end 
of  Rouen  Cathedral,  pierced  into  a  transparent  web  of  tracery,  amJ 
enriched  with  a  border  of  "twisted  eglantine." 


ATHENA    EST   THE    HEART.  10? 

who  built  that,  would  have  built  Stonehenge?  Do  you 
think  an  old  Roman  would  have  liked  such  a  piece  of 
filigree  work  ?  or  that  Michael  Angelo  would  have  spent 
his  time  in  twisting  these  stems  of  roses  in  and  out  ?  Or,  of 
modern  handicraftsmen,  do  you  think  a  burglar,  or  a  brute, 
or  a  pickpocket  could  have  carved  it?  Could  Bill  Sykes 
have  done  it?  or  the  Dodger,  dexterous  with  finger  and 
tool  ?  Tou  will  find  in  the  end,  that  no  man  could  have 
done  it  hut  exactly  the  man  who  did  it ;  and  by  looking 
close  at  it,  you  may,  if  you  know  your  letters,  read  pre 
cisely  the  manner  of  man  he  was. 

104.  Now  I  must  insist  on  this  matter,  for  a  grave 
reason.  Of  all  facts  concerning  art,  this  is  the  one  most 
necessary  to  be  known,  that,  while  manufacture  is  the 
work  of  hands  only,  art  is  the  work  of  the  whole  spirit  oi 
man ;  and  as  that  spirit  is,  so  is  the  deed  of  it :  and  by 
whatever  power  of  vice  or  virtue  any  art  is  produced,  the 
same  vice  or  virtue  it  reproduces  and  teaches.  That 
which  is  born  of  evil  begets  evil ;  and  that  which  is  born 
of  valour  and  honour,  teaches  valour  and  honour.  All 
art  is  either  infection  or  education.  It  must  be  one  oi 
other  of  these. 

105.  This,  I  repeat,  of  all  truths  respecting  art,  i.~  the 
one  of  which  understanding  is  the  most  precious,  and 
denial  the  most  deadly.  And  I  assert  it  the  more,  be- 
cause it  has  of  late  been  repeatedly,  expressly,  and  with 
contumely,  denied  ;  and  that  by  high  authority  :  and  I 
hold  it  one  of  the  most  sorrowful  facts  connected  with  the 


108  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE  AIR. 

decline  of  the  arts  among  us,  that  English  gentlemen,  of 
high  standing  as  scholars  and  artists,  should  have  been 
blinded  into  the  acceptance,  and  betrayed  into  the  asser- 
tion of  a  fallacy  which  only  authority  such  as  theirs  could 
have  rendered  for  an  instant  credible.  For  the  contrary 
of  it  is  written  in  the  history  of  all  great  nations ;  it  is  the 
one  sentence  always  inscribed  on  the  steps  of  their 
thrones ;  the  one  concordant  voice  in  which  they  speak  to 
us  out  of  their  dust. 

All  such  nations  first  manifest  themselves  as  a  pure  and 
beautiful  animal  race,  with  intense  energy  and  imagi- 
nation. They  live  lives  of  hardship  by  choice,  and  by 
grand  instinct  of  manly  discipline :  they  become  fierce  and 
irresistible  soldiers ;  the  nation  is  always  its  own  army, 
and  their  king,  or  chief  head  of  government,  is  always 
their  first  soldier.  Pharaoh,  or  David,  or  Leonidas,  or 
Valerius,  or  Barbarossa,  or  Coeur  de  Lion,  or  St.  Louis,  or 
Dandolo,  or  Frederick  the  Great : — Egyptian,  Jew,  Greek, 
Roman,  German,  English,  French,  Venetian, — that  is  in- 
violable law  for  them  all ;  their  king  must  be  their  first 
soldier,  or  they  cannot  be  in  progressive  power.  Then, 
after  their  great  military  period,  comes  the  domestic 
period  ;  in  which,  without  betraying  the  discipline  of  war, 
they  add  to  their  great  soldiership  the  delights  and  posses- 
sions of  a  delicate  and  tender  home-life :  and  then,  for  all 
nations,  is  the  time  of  their  perfect  art,  which  is  the  fruit, 
the  evidence,  the  reward  of  their  national  ideal  of  charac- 
ter, developed  by  the  finished  care  of  the  occupations  of 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEART.  109 

peace.  That  is  the  history  of  all  true  art  that  ever  a*  as; 
or  can  be  :  palpably  the  history  of  it, — unmistakeably, — ■ 
written  on  the  forehead  of  it  in  letters  of  light, — in 
tongues  of  fire,  by  which  the  seal  of  virtue  is  branded  afc 
deep  as  ever  iron  burnt  into  a  convict's  flesh  the  seal  of 
crime.  But  always,  hitherto,  after  the  great  period,  has 
followed  the  day  of  luxury,  and  pursuit  of  the  arts  for 
pleasure  only.     And  all  has  so  ended. 

106.  Thus  far  of  Abbeville  building.  Now  I  havu 
here  asserted  two  things, — first,  the  foundation  of  art  in 
moral  character;  next,  the  foundation  of  moral  character 
in  war,  I  must  make  both  these  assertions  clearer,  and 
prove  them. 

First,  of  thf  fo  ndation  of  art  in  moral  character.  Of 
course  art-gift  ir  '.  amiability  of  disposition  are  two  dif- 
ferent things'.  (  r  good  man  is  riot  necessarily  a  painter, 
nor  does  an  #j  for  colour  necessarily  imply  an  honest 
mind.  Bn.gi-  y_  art  implies  the  union  of  both  powers: 
it  is  the  expression,  by  an  art-gift,  of  a  pure  soul.  If  the 
gift  is  not  there,  we  can  have  no  art  at  all ;  and  if  the 
soul— and  a  right  soul  too — is  not  there,  the  art  is  bad, 
however  dexterous. 

107.  But  also,  remember,  that  the  art-gift  itself  is  only 
the  result  of  the  moral  character  of  generations.  A  bad 
woman  may  have  a  sweet  voice ;  but  that  sweetness  of 
voice  comes  of  the  past  morality  of  her  race.  That  she 
can  sing  with  it  at  all,  she  owes  to  the  determination 
of  laws  of  music  by  the  morality  of  the  past.      Every 


110  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

act,  every  impulse,  of  virtue  and  vice,  affects  in  anj 
creature,  face,  voice,  nervous  power,  and  vigoar  and 
harmonv  of  invention,  at  once.  Perseverance  in  Tight- 
ness of  human  conduct,  renders,  after  a  certain  number 
of  generations,  human  art  possible;  every  sin  clouds  it, 
be  it  ever  so  little  a  one;  and  persistent  vicious  living 
and  following  of  pleasure  render,  after  a  certain  number 
of  generations,  all  art  impossible.  Men  are  deceived  by 
the  long-suffering  of  the  laws  of  nature ;  and  mistake,  in 
a  nation,  the  reward  of  the  virtue  of  its  sires  for  the  issue 
of  its  own  sins.  The  time  of  their  visitation  will  come, 
and  that  inevitably;  for,  it  is  always  true,  that  if  the 
fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes,  the  children's  teeth  are 
set  on  edge.  ,  And  for  the  individual,  as  soon  as  you  have 
learned  to  read,  you  may,  as  I  said,  know  him  to  the 
heart's  core,  through  his  art.  Let  his  art-gift  be  never  so 
great,  and  cultivated  to  the  height  by  the  schools  of  a 
great  race  of  men ;  and  it  is  still  but  a  tapestry  thrown 
over  his  own  being  and  inner  soul ;  and  the  bearing  of  it 
will  show,  infallibly,  whether  it  hangs  on  a  man,  or  on 
a  skeleton.  If  you  are  dim-eyed,  you  may  not  see  the 
difference  in  the  fall  of  the  folds  at  first,  but  learn  how  to 
look,  and  the  folds  themselves  will  become  transparent, 
and  you  shall  see  through  them  the  death's  shape,  or 
the  divine  one,  making  the  tissue  abore  it  as  a  cloud  of 
light,  or  as  a  winding-sheet. 

108.  Then  farther,  observe,  I  have  said  (and  yon  wiil 
tind  it  true,  and  that  to  the  uttermost)  that,  as  all  lovely 


ATHENA    IN    THE    HEART.  Ill 

art  is  rooted  in  virtue,  so  it  bears  fruit  of  virtue,  and 
is  didactic  in  its  own  nature.  It  is  often  didactic 
also  in  actually  expressed  thought,  as  Giotto's,  Michael 
Angelo's:  Durer's,  and  hundreds  more ;  but  that  ia 
not  its  special  function, — it  is  didactic  chiefly  by  being 
beautiful;  but  beautiful  with  haunting  thought,  no  less 
than  with  form,  and  full  of  myths  that  can  be  read  only 
with  the  heart. 

For  instance,  at  this  moment  there  is  open  beside  me 
as  I  write,  a  page  of  Persian  manuscript,  wrought  with 
wreathed  azure  and  gold,  and  soft  green,  and  violet, 
and  ruby  and  scarlet,  into  one  field  of  pure  resplendence. 
It  is  wrought  to  delight  the  eyes  only  ;  and  does  delight 
them ;  and  the  man  who  did  it  assuredly  had  eyes  in  his 
head;  but  not  much  more.  It  is  not  didactic  art,  but  its 
author  was  happy :  and  it  will  do  the  good,  and  the  harm, 
that  mere  pleasure  can  do.  But,  opposite  me,  is  an  early 
Turner  drawing  of  the  lake  of  Geneva,  taken  about  two 
miles  from  Geneva,  on  the  Lausanne  road,  with  Mont 
Blanc  in  the  distance.  The  old  city  is  seen  lying  beyond 
the  waveless  waters,  veiled  with  a  sweet  misty  veil  of 
Athena's  weaving:  a  faint  light  of  morning,  peaceful 
exceedingly,  and  almost  colourless,  shed  from  behind  the 
Voircns,  increases  into  soft  amber  along  the  slope  of  the 
Saleve,  and  is  just  seen,  and  no  more,  on  the  fair  warm 
fields  of  its  summit,  between  the  folds  of  a  white  cloud 
that  rests  upon  the  grass,  but  rises,  high  and  tower  like 
into  the  zenith  of  dawn  above. 


112  THE    QUEEN   OF    THE    AIK. 

109.  There  is  not  as  much  colour  in  that  low  amber 
light  upon  the  hill-side  as  there  is  in  the  palest  dead  leaf, 
The  lake  is  not  blue,  but  gray  in  m.st,  passing  into  deep 
shadow  beneath  the  Voirons'  pines ;  a  few  dark  clusters 
of  leaves,  a  single  white  flower — scarcely  seen — are  all  the 
gladness  given  to  the  rocks  of  the  shore.  One  of  the  ruby 
spots  of  the  eastern  manuscript  would  give  colour  enough 
for  all  the  red  that  is  in  Turner's  entire  drawing.  For  the 
mere  pleasure  of  the  eye,  there  is  not  so  much  in  all  those 
lines  of  his,  throughout  the  entire  landscape,  as  in  half  an 
inch  square  of  the  Persian's  page.  What  made  him  take 
pleasure  in  the  low  colour  that  is  only  like  the  brown  of  a 
dead  leaf?  in  the  cold  gray  of  dawn — in  the  one  white 
flower  among  the  rocks— in  these— and  no  more  than  these? 

110.  He  took  pleasure  in  them  because  he  had  been 
bred  among  English  fields  and  hills ;  because  the  gentle- 
ness of  a  great  race  was  in  his  heart,  and  its  powers  of 
thought  in  his  brain  ;  because  he  knew  the  stories  of  the 
Alps,  and  of  the  cities  at  their  feet ;  because  he  had  read 
the  Homeric  legends  of  the  clouds,  and  beheld  the  gods  of 
dawn,  and  the  givers  of  dew  to  the  fields  ;  because  he 
knew  the  faces  of  the  crags,  and  the  imagery  of  the  pas- 
sionate mountains,  as  a  man  knows  the  face  of  his  friend  ; 
because  he  had  in  him  the  wonder  and  sorrow  concerning 
life  and  death,  which  are  the  inheritance  of  the  Gothic 
soul  from  the  days  of  its  first  sea  kings  ;  and  also  the  com- 
passion and  the  joy  that  are  woven  into  the  innermost 
fabric   of  every  yreat  imaginative   spirit,   born   now  in 


ATHENA  IN  THE  HEART.  113 

countries  that  have  lived  by  the  Christian  faith  with  anv 
courage  or  truth.  And  the  picture  contains  also,  for  us. 
just  this  which  its  maker  had  in  him  to  give ;  and  can 
convey  it  to  us,  just  so  far  as  we  are  of  the  temper  in 
which  it  must  be  received.  It  is  didactic  if  we  are  worthy 
to  be  taught,  no  otherwise.  The  pure  heart,  it  will  make 
more  pure;  the  thoughtful,  more  thoughtful.  It  has  in  it 
no  words  for  the  reckless  or  the  base. 

111.  As  I  myself  look  at  it,  there  is  no  fault  nor  folly  of 
my  life, — and  both  have  been  many  and  great, — that  does 
not  rise  up  against  me,  and  take  away  my  joy,  and  shorten 
my  power  of  possession,  of  sight,  of  understanding.  And 
every  past  effort  of  my  life,  every  gleam  of  rightness  or 
good  in  it,  is  with  me  now,  to  help  me  in  my  grasp  of  this 
art,  and  its  vision.  So  far  as  I  can  rejoice  in,  or  interpret 
either,  my  power  is  owing  to  what  of  right  there  is  in  me. 
I  dare  to  say  it,  that,  because  through  all  my  life  I  have 
desired  good,  and  not  evil ;  because  I  have  been  kind  to 
many;  have  wished  to  be  kind  to  all ;  have  wilfully  injur- 
ed none ;  and  because  I  have  loved  much,  and  not  selfishly ; 
— therefore,  the  morning  light  is  yet  visible  to  me  on  those 
hills,  and  you,  who  read,  may  trust  my  thought  and  word 
in  such  work  as  I  have  to  do  for  #you  ;  and  you  will  be  glad 
afterwards  that  you  have  trusted  them. 

112.  Yet  remember, — I  repeat  it  again  and  yet  again, — 
that  I  may  for  once,  if  possible,  make  this  thing  assuredly 
clear: — the  inherited  art-gift  must  be  there,  as  well  as  the 
life  in  some  poor   measure,  or  rescued    fragment,    right 


114  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIB. 

This  art-gift  of  mine  could  not  have  been  won  by  any  work 
or  by  any  conduct :  it  belongs  to  me  by  birthright,  and 
came  by  Athena's  will,  from  the  air  of  English  country 
villages,  and  Scottish  hills.  I  will  risk  whatever  charge 
of  folly  may  come  on  me,  for  printing  one  of  my  many 
childish  rhymes,  written  on  a  frosty  day  in  Glen  Farg,  just 
north  of  Loch  Leven.  It  bears  date  1st  January,  1828. 
I  was  born  on  the  8th  of  February,  1819  ;  and  all  that  1 
ever  could  be,  and  all  that  I  cannot  be,  the  weak  little 
rhyme  already  shows. 

"  Papa,  how  pretty  those  icicles  are, 
That  are  seen  so  near, — that  are  seen  so  far; 
— Those  droppiog  waters  that  come  from  the  rocks 
And  many  a  hole,  like  the  haunt  of  a  fox. 
That  silvery  stream  that  runs  babbling  along, 
Making  a  murmuring,  dancing  song. 
Those  trees  that  stand  waving  upon  the  rock's  side, 
And  men,  that,  like  spectres,  among  them  glide. 
And  waterfalls  that  are  heard  from  far, 
And  come  in  sight  when  very  near. 
And  the  water-wheel  that  turns  slowly  round, 
Grinding  the  corn  that — requires  to  be  ground, — 

(Political  Economy  of  the  future  !) 

And  mountaias  at  a  distance  seen, 

And  rivers  winding  through  the  plain. 
And  quarries  with  their  craggy  stones, 
And  the  wind  among  them  moans." 

So  foretelling  Stones  of  Yenice,  and  this  essay  on  Athena 
Enough  now  concerning  myself. 


ATHENA   IN    THE    HEART.  115 

113.  Of  Turner's  life,  and  of  its  good  and  evil,  both  great, 
but  the  good  immeasurably  the  greater,  his  work  is  in  all 
things  a  perfect  and  transparent  evidence.  His  biography 
is  simply, — "  He  did  this,  nor  will  ever  another  do  its  like 
again."  Yet  read  what  I  have  said  of  him,  as  compared 
with  the  great  Italians,  in  the  passages  taken  from  the 
"  Cestus  of  Aglaia,"  farther  on,  §  158,  p.  162. 

114.  This  then  is  the  nature  of  the  connection  of  morala 
with  art.  Now,  secondly,  I  have  asserted  the  foundation 
of  both  these,  at  least,  hitherto,  in  war.  The  reason  of 
this  too  manifest  fact  is,  that,  until  now,  it  has  been  im- 
possible for  any  nation,  except  a  warrior  one,  to  fix  its 
mind  wholly  on  its  men,  instead  of  on  their  possessions. 
Every  great  soldier  nation  thinks,  necessarily,  first  of  mul- 
tiplying its  bodies  and  souls  of  men,  in  good  temper  and 
strict  discipline.  As  long  as  this  is  its  political  aim,  it 
does  not  matter  what  it  temporarily  suffers,  or  loses,  either 
in  numbers  or  in  wealth;  its  morality  and  its  arts,  (if  it 
have  national  art-gift,)  advance  together ;  but  so  soon  as  it 
ceases  to  be  a  warrior  nation,  it  thinks  of  its  posses>iniH 
instead  of  its  men;  and  then  the  moral  and  poetic  powers 
vanish  together. 

115.  It  is  thus,  however,  absolutely  necessary  to  the  vir- 
tue of  war  that  it  should  be  waged  by  personal  strength, 
not  by  money  or  machinery.  A  nation  that  fights  with  a 
mercenary  force,  or  with  torpedos  instead  of  its  own  arms, 
is  dying.  Not  but  that  there  is  more  true  courage  in  mod- 
ern than  even  in  ancient  war ;  but  this  is,  first,  because  all 


116  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

the  remaining  life  of  European  nations  is  with  a  morbid 
intensity  thrown  into  their  soldiers  ;  and,  secondly,  because 
their  present  heroism  is  the  culmination  of  centuries  of 
inbred  and  traditional  valour,  which  Athena  tai  ght  them 
by  forcing  them  to  govern  the  foam  of  the  sea- wave  and 
of  the  horse, — not  the  steam  of  kettles. 

116.  And  farther,  note  this,  which  is  vital  to  us  in  the 
present  crisis :  If  war  is  to  be  made  by  money  and  machine- 
ry, the  nation  which  is  the  largest  and  most  covetous  multi- 
tude will  win.  You  may  be  as  scientific  as  you  choose  ; 
the  mob  that  can  pay  more  for  sulphuric  acid  and  gun- 
powder will  at  last  poison  its  ballets,  throw  acid  in  your 
faces,  and  make  an  end  of  you ; — of  itself,  also,  in  good 
time,  but  of  you  first.  And  to  the  English  people  the 
choice  of  its  fate  is  very  near  now.  It  may  spasmodically 
defend  its  property  with  iron  walls  a  fathom  thick,  a  few 
years  longer — a  very  few.  No  walls  will  defend  either  it, 
or  its  havings,  against  the  multitude  that  is  breeding  and 
spreading,  faster  than  the  clouds,  over  the  habitable  earth. 
We  shall  be  allowed  to  live  by  small  pedlar's  business,  and 
ironmongery — since  we  have  chosen  those  for  our  line  of 
life — as  long  as  we  are  found  useful  black  servants  to  the 
Americans ;  and  are  content  to  dig  coals  and  sit  in  the  cin- 
ders ;  and  have  still  coals  to  dig, — they  once  exhausted,  or 
got  cheaper  elsewhere,  we  shall  be  abolished.  But  if  we 
think  more  wisely,  while  there  is  yet  time,  and  set  our 
minds  again  on  multiplying  Englishmen,  and  not  on 
cheapening  English  wares;   if  we   resolve  to  submit  to 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEART.  117 

wholesome  laws  of  labour  and  economy,  and,  setting  oui 
political  squabbles  aside,  try  how  many  strong  creatures, 
friendly  and  faithful  to  each  other,  we  can  crowd  into  everv 
§pot  of  English  dominion,  neither  poison  nor  iron  will  pre 
vail  against  us;  nor  traffic — nor  hatred:  the  noble  nation 
will  yet  by  the  grace  of  Heaven,  rule  over  the  ignoble,  and 
force  of  heart  hold  its  own  against  fire-balls. 

117.  But  there  is  yet  a  farther  reason  for  the  depend- 
ence of  the  arts  on  war.  The  vice  and  injustice  of  the 
world  are  constantly  springing  anew,  and  are  only  to  be 
subdued  by  battle ;  the  keepers  of  order  and  law  must  al- 
ways be  soldiers.  And  now,  going  back  to  the  myth  of 
Athena,  we  see  that  though  she  is  first  a  warrior  maid,  she 
detests  war  for  its  own  sake ;  she  arms  Achilles  and 
Ulysses  in  just  quarrels,  but  she  ^'sarms  Ares.  She  con- 
tends, herself,  continually  against  disorder  and  convulsion, 
in  the  Earth  giants;  she  stands  by  Hercules'  side  in  vic- 
tory over  all  monstrous  evil :  in  justice  only  she  judges 
and  makes  war.  But  in  this  war  of  hers  she  is  wholly 
implacable.  She  has  little  notion  of  converting  criminals. 
There  is  no  faculty  of  mercy  in  her  when  she  has  been 
resisted.  Her  word  is  only,  "  I  will  mock  when  your  fear 
cometh."  Note  the  words  that  follow  :  "  when  your  fear 
cometh  as  desolation,  and  your  destruction  as  a  whirl 
wind;"  for  her  wrath  '8  of  irresistible  tempest:  once 
roused,  it  is  blind  and  deaf,- -rabies — madness  of  anerer— 
darkness  of  the  Dies  Irae. 

And  that  is,  indeed,  the  sorrowfullest  fact  we  have  tc 


118  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIK 

know  about  our  own  several  lives.  Wisdom  nevei  for- 
gives. Whatever  resistance  we  have  offered  to  her  law, 
she  avenges  for  ever; — the  lost  hour  can  never  be  re- 
deemed, and  the  accomplished  wrong  never  atoned  for. 
The  best  that  can  be  done  afterwards,  but  for  that,  had 
been  better ; — the  falsest  of  all  the  cries  of  peace,  where 
there  is  no  peace,  is  that  of  the  pardon  of  sin,  as  the  mob 
expect  it.  Wisdom  can  "  put  away "  sin,  but  she  cannot 
pardon  it ;  and  she  is  apt,  in  her  haste,  to  put  away  the 
Binner  as  well,  when  the  black  segis  is  on  her  breast. 

118.  And  this  is  also  a  fact  we  have  to  know  about  our 
national  life,  that  it  is  ended  as  soon  as  it  has  lost  the 
power  of  noble  Anger.  When  it  paints  over,  and  apolo- 
gizes for  its  pitiful  criminalities ;  and  endures  its  false 
weights,  and  its  adulterated  food ; — dares  not  to  decide 
practically  between  good  and  evil,  and  can  neither  honour 
the  one,  nor  smite  the  other,  but  sneers  at  the  good,  as  if 
it  were  hidden  evil,  and  consoles  the  evil  with  pious 
sympathy,  and  conserves  it  in  the  sugar  of  its  leaden 
heart, — the  end  is  come. 

119.  The  first  sign,  then,  of  Athena's  presence  with  any 
people,  is  that  they  become  warriors,  and  that  the  chief 
thought  of  every  man  of  them  is  to  stand  rightly  in  his 
rank,  and  not  fail  from  his  brother's  side  in  battle. 
Wealth,  and  pleasure,  and  even  love,  are  all,  under 
Athena's  orders,  sacrificed  to  this  duty  of  standing  fast  in 
the  rank  of  wai . 

But  farther :  Athena  presides  over  industry,  as  well  a* 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEART.  119 

battle;  typically,  over  women's  industry;  that  brings 
comfort  with  pleasantness.  Her  word  to  us  all  is : — "  Be 
well  exercised,  and  rightly  clothed.  Clothed,  and  in  your 
right  minds ;  not.  insane  and  in  rags,  nor  in  soiled  fine 
clothes  clutched  from  each  other's  shoulders.  Fight  and 
weave.  Then  I  myself  will  answer  for  the  course  of  the 
lance,  and  the  colours  of  the  loom." 

And  now  I  will  ask  the  reader  to  look  with  some  care 
through  these  following  passages  respecting  modern  mul- 
titudes and  their  occupations,  written  long  ago,  but  left 
in  fragmentary  form,  in  which  they  must  now  stay,  and 
be  of  what  use  they  can. 

120.  It  is  not  political  economy  to  put  a  number  of 
strong  men  down  on  an  acre  of  ground,  with  no  lodging, 
and  nothing  to  eat.  Nor  is  it  political  economy  to  build 
a  city  on  good  ground,  and  fill  it  with  store  of  corn  and 
treasure,  and  put  a  score  of  lepers  to  live  in  it.  Political 
economy  creates  together  the  means  of  life,  and  the  living 
persons  who  are  to  use  them;  and  of  both,  the  best  and 
the  most  that  it  can,  but  imperatively  the  best,  not  the 
most.  A  few  good  and  healthy  men,  rather  than  a  mul- 
titude of  diseased  rogues  ;  and  a  little  real  milk  and  wine 
rather  than  much  chalk  and  petroleum;  but  the  gist  of 
the  whole  business  is  that  the  men  and  their  property 
must  both  be  produced  together — not  one  to  the  loss  of 
the  other.  Property  must  not  be  created  in  lands  deso- 
late by  exile  of  their  people,  nor  multiplied  and  depraved 
humanity,  in  lands  barren  of  bread. 


120  THE    QUEEN  vOF   THE    AIR. 

121.  Nevertheless,  though  the  men  and  their  posses- 
sions are  to  be  increased  at  the  same  time,  the  first  object 
of  thought  is  always  to  be  the  multiplication  of  a  worthy 
people.  The  strength  of  the  nation  is  in  its  multitude, 
not  in  its  territory;  but  only  in  its  sound  multitude.  It 
is  one  thing,  both  in  a  man  and  a  nation,  to  gain  flesh, 
and  another  to  be  swollen  with  putrid  humours.  Not 
that  multitude  ever  ought  to  be  inconsistent  with  virtue. 
Two  men  should  be  wiser  than  one,  and  two  thousand  than 
two ;  nor  do  I  know  another  so  gross  fallacy  in  the  records 
of  human  stupidity  as  that  excuse  for  neglect  of  crime  by 
greatness  of  cities.  As  if  the  first  purpose  of  congregation 
were  not  to  devise  laws  and  repress  crimes !  as  if  bees  and 
wasps  could  live  honestly  in  flocks, — men,  only  in  separate 
dens  ! — as  if  it  was  easy  to  help  one  another  on  the  oppo- 
site sides  of  a  mountain,  and  impossible  on  the'opposite 
sides  of  a  street !  But  when  the  men  are  true  and  good, 
and  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder,  the  strength  of  any  nation 
is  in  its  quantity  of  life,  not  in  its  land  nor  gold.  The 
more  good  men  a  state  has,  in  proportion  to  its  territory, 
the  stronger  the  state.  And  as  it  has  been  the  madness 
of  economists  to  seek  for  gold  instead  of  life,  so  it  has  been 
the  madness  of  kings  to  seek  for  land  instead  of  life. 
They  want  the  town  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  and 
seek  it  at  the  spear  point:  it  never  enters  their  stupid 
heads  that  to  double  the  honest  souls  in  the  town  on  this 
side  of  the  river,  would  make  them  stronger  kings ;  an(, 
that  this  doubling  might  be  done  by  the  ploughshare  iu- 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEART.  12J 

Btead  of  the  spear,  and  through  happiness  instead  of  misery. 

Therefore,  in  brief,  this  is  the  object  of  all  true  policy 
and  true  economy:  "utmost  multitude  of  good  men  on 
every  given  space  of  ground" — imperatively  always, 
good,  sound,  honest  men,  not  a  mob  of  white-faced 
thieves.  So  that,  on  the  one  hand,  all  aristocracy  is 
wrong  which  is  inconsistent  with  numbers;  and,  on  the 
other,  all  numbers  are  wrong  which  are  inconsistent  with 
breeding. 

122.  Then,  touching  the  accumulation  of  wealth  for  the 
maintenance  of  such  men,  observe,  that  you  must  never 
use  the  terms  "  money  "  and  "  wealth  "  as  synonymous. 
Wealth  consists  of  the  good,  and  therefore  useful,  things 
in  the  possession  of  the  nation  :  money  is  only  the  written 
or  coined  sign  of  the  relative  quantities  of  wealth  in  each 
person's  possession.  All  money  is  a  divisible  title-deed, 
of  immense  importance  as  an  expression  of  right  to  pro- 
perty ;  but  absolutely  valueless,  as  property  itself.  Thus, 
supposing  a  nation  isolated  from  all  others,  the  money  in 
its  possession  is,  at  its  maximum  value,  worth  all  the  pro- 
perty of  the  nation,  arfd  no  more,  because  no  more  can  be 
got  for  it.  And  the  money  of  all  nations  is  worth,  at  its 
maximum,  the  property  of  all  nations,  and  do  more,  forno 
more  can  be  got  for  it.  Thus,  every  article  of  property 
produced  increases,  by  its  value,  the  value  of  all  the  money 
in  the  world,  and  every  article  of  property  destroyed, 
din  inishea  the  value  of  all  the  money  in  the  world,  if 
ten  men  are  cast  away  on  a  ruck-,  with  a  thousand  pounds 


122  THE    QUEEN"   OF   THE   AIR. 

in  their  pockets,  and  there  is  on  the  rock  neither  food  noi 
shelter,  their  money  is  worth  simply  nothing ;  for  nothing 
is  to  be  had  for  it :  if  they  build  ten  huts,  and  recover  a 
cask  of  biscuit  from  the  wreck,  then  their  thousand  pounds, 
at  its  maximum  value,  is  worth  ten  huts  and  a  cask  of 
biscuit.  If  they  make  their  thousand  pounds  into  two 
thousand  by  writing  new  notes,  their  two  thousand  pounds 
are  still  only  worth  ten  huts  and  a  cask  of  biscuit.  And 
the  law  of  relative  value  is  the  same  for  all  the  world,  and 
all  the  people  in  it,  and  all  their  property,  as  for  ten  men 
on  a  rock.  Therefore,  money  is  truly  and  finally  lost  in 
the  degree  in  which  its  value  is  taken  from  it,  (ceasing  in 
that  degree  to  be  money  at  all) ;  and  it  is  truly  gained  in 
the  degree  in  which  value  is  added  to  it.  Thus,  suppose 
the  money  coined  by  the  nation  to  be  a  fixed  sum,  divided 
very  minutely,  (say  into  francs  and  cents),  and  neither  to 
be  added  to,  nor  diminished.  Then  every  grain  of  food 
and  inch  of  lodging  added  to  its  possessions  makes  everj 
cent  in  its  pockets  worth  proportion  ally  more,  and  every 
grain  of  food  it  consumes,  and  inch  of  roof  it  allows  to  fall 
to  ruin,  makes  every  cent  in  its  pockets  worth  less ;  and 
this  with  mathematical  precision.  The  immediate  value 
of  the  money  at  particular  times  and  places  depends,  in- 
deed, on  the  humours  of  the  possessors  of  property  ;  but 
the  nation  is  in  the  one  case  gradually  getting  richer  ;  and 
will  feel  the  pressure  of  poverty  steadily  everywhere 
relaxing,  whatever  the  humours  of  individuals  may  be; 
and,  in  the  other  case,  is  gradually  growing  poorer,  and 


ATHENA  IN  THE  HEART.  123 

the  pressure  of  its  poverty  will  every  day  tell  more  and 
more,  in  ways  that  it  cannot  explain,  but  will  most 
bitterly  feel. 

123.  The  actual  quantity  of  money  which  it  coins,  in 
relation  to  its  real  property,  is  therefore  only  of  conse- 
quence for  convenience  of  exchange ;  but  the  proportion 
in  which  this  quantity  of  money  is  divided  among  indi- 
viduals expresses  their  various  rights  to  greater  or  less 
proportions  of  the  national  property,  and  must  not,  there- 
fore, be  tampered  with.  The  Government  may  at  any 
time,  with  perfect  justice,  double  its  issue  of  coinage,  if  it 
gives  every  man  who  had  ten  pounds  in  his  pocket,  an- 
other ten  pounds,  and  every  man  who  had  ten  pence,  an- 
other ten  pence ;  for  it  thus  does  not  make  any  of  them 
richer  ;  it  merely  divides  their  counters  for  them  into  twico 
the  number.  But  if  it  gives  the  newly-issued  coins  to 
other  people,  or  keeps  them  itself,  it  simply  robs  the 
former  holders  to  precisely  that  extent.  This  most  im- 
portant function  of  money,  as  a  title-deed,  on  the  non- 
violation of  which  all  national  soundness  of  commerce 
and  peace  of  life  depend,  has  been  never  rightly  distin- 
guished by  economists  from  the  quite  unimportant  func- 
tion of  money  as  a  means  of  exchange.  You  can  exchange 
goods, — at  some  inconvenience,  indeed,  but  still  you  can 
contrive  to  do  it, — without  money  at  all  ;  but  you  cannot 
maintain  your  claim  to  the  savings  of  your  past  life  with- 
out i  document  declaring  the  amount  of  them,  which  the 
nation  and  its  Government  will  respect. 


124:  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    A.TK. 

124.  And  as  economists  have  lost  sight  of  tin-  ojreal 
function  of  money  in  relation  to  individual  rights,  so 
they  have  equally  lost  sight  of  its  function  as  a  represen- 
tative of  good  things.  That,  for  every  good  thing  pro 
duced,  so  much  money  is  put  into  everybody's  pocket — 
is  the  one  simple  and  primal  truth  for  the  public  to  know, 
and  for  economists  to  teach.  How  many  of  them  have 
taught  it?  Some  have;  but  only  incidentally;  and 
others  will  say  it  is  a  truism.  If  it  be,  do  the  public 
know  it?  Does  your  ordinary  English  householder  know 
that  every  costly  dinner  he  gives  has  destroyed  for  ever 
as  much  money  as  it  is  worth  ?  Does  every  well-edu- 
eated  girl — do  even  the  women  in  high  political  posi- 
tion— know  that  every  fine  dress  they  wear  themselves, 
or  cause  to  be  worn,  destroys  precisely  so  much  of  the 
national  money  as  the  labour  and  material  of  it  are  worth  ? 
If  this  be  a  truism,  it  is  one  that  needs  proclaiming  some- 
what louder. 

125.  That,  then,  is  the  relation  of  money  and.  goods. 
So  much  goods,  so  much  money;  so  little  goods,  so  little 
money.  But,  as  there  is  this  true  relation  between 
money  and  "goods,"  or  good  things,  so  there  is  a  false 
relation  between  money  and  "bads,"  or  bad  things. 
Many  bad  things  will  fetch  a  price  in  exchange;  but 
they  do  not  increase  the  wealth  of  the  country.  Good 
wine  is  wealth  —  drugged  wine  is  not;  good  meat  ia 
wealth — putrid  meat  is  not ;  good  pictures  are  wealth- 
bad  pictures  are  not.     A  thing  is  worth  precisely  what 


ATHENA  IN  THE  HEAHT.  125 

it  can  do  for  you;  not  what  you  choose  to  pay  for  it. 
You  may  pay  a  thousand  pounds  for  a  cracked  pipkin, 
if  you  please ;  but  you  do  not  by  that  transaction  maka 
the  cracked  pipkin  worth  one  that  will  hold  water,  nor 
that,  nor  any  pipkin  whatsoever,  worth  more  than  it  was 
before  you  paid  such  sum  for  it.  You  may,  perhaps, 
induce  many  potters  to  manufacture  fissured  pots,  and 
many  amateurs  of  clay  to  buy  them ;  but  the  nation  iSj 
through  the  whole  business  so  encouraged,  rich  by  the 
addition  to  its  wealth  of  so  many  potsherds — and  there 
an  end.  The  thing  is  worth  what  it  can  do  for  you,  not 
what  you  think  it  can;  and  most  national  luxuries,  now- 
a-days,  are  a  form  of  potsherd,  provided  for  the  solace  of 
a  self-complacent  Job,  voluntary  sedent  on  his  ash-heap. 

126.  And,  also,  so  far  as  good  things  already  exist,  and 
have  become  media  of  exchange,  the  variations  in  their 
prices  are  absolutely  indifferent  to  the  nation.  "Whether 
Mr.  A.  buys  a  Titian  from  Mr.  B.  for  twenty,  or  for  two  thou- 
sand, pounds,  matters  not  sixpence  to  the  national  reve- 
nue :  that  is  to  say,  it  matters  in  nowise  to  the  revenue 
whether  Mr.  A.  has  the  picture,  and  Mr.  B.  the  money, 
or  Mr.  B.  the  picture,  and  Mr.  A.  the  money.  Which  of 
them  will  spend  the  money  most  wisely,  and  which  of 
them  will  keep  the  picture  most  carefully,  is,  indeed,  a 
matter  of  some  importance ;  but  this  cannot  be  known  by 
the  mere  fact  of  exchange. 

127.  The  wealth  of  a  nation  then,  first,  and  its  peace 
and  well-being  besides,  depend  on  the  number  of  person? 


126  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

it  can  employ  in  making  good  and  useful  things.  I  say 
its  well-being  also,  for  the  character  of  men  depends 
more  on  their  occupations  than  on  any  teaching  we  can 
give  them,  or  principles  with  which  we  can  imbue  them 
The  employment  forms  the  habits  of  body  and  mind,  and 
these  are  the  constitution  of  the  man ; — the  greater  part 
of  his  moral  or  persistent  nature,  whatever  effort,  under 
special  excitement,  he  may  make  to  change,  or  overcome 
them.  Employment  is  the  half,  and  the  primal  half,  of 
education — it  is  the  warp  of  it ;  and  the  fineness  or  the 
endurance  of  all  subsequently  woven  pattern  depends 
wholly  on  its  straightness  and  strength.  And,  whatever 
difficulty  there  may  be  in  tracing  through  past  history 
the  remoter  connections  of  event  and  cause,  one  chain 
of  sequence  is  always  clear :  the  formation,  namely,  of 
the  character  of  nations  by  their  employments,  and  the 
determination  of  their  final  fate  by  their  character.  The 
moment,  and  the  first  direction  of  decisive  revolutions, 
often  depend  on  accident ;  but  their  persistent  course,  and 
their  consequences,  depend  wholly  on  the  nature  of  the 
people.  The  passing  of  the  Reform.  Bill  by  the  late 
English  Parliament  may  have  been  more  or  less  acci- 
dental: the  results  of  the  measure  now  rest  on  the  cha- 
racter of  the  English  people,  as  it  has  been  developed 
by  their  recent  interests,  occupations,  and  habits  of  life. 
Whether,  as  a  body,  they  employ  their  "new  powers  foi 
good  or  evil,  will  depend,  not  on  their  facilities  of  knowl 
edge,  nor  even  on  the  general  intelligence  they  may  pos 


ATHENA   EN-   THE   HEART.  121 

sess ;  but  on  the  number  of  persons  among  them  whom 
wholesome  employments  have  rendered  familiar  with 
the  duties,  and  modest  in  their  estimate  of  the  promises, 
of  Life. 

128.  But  especially  iij  framing  laws  respecting  the 
treatment  or  employment  of  improvident  and  more  ci 
less  vicious  persons,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  aa  men 
are  not  made  heroes  by  the  performance  of  an  act  of 
heroism,  but  must  be  brave  before  they  can  perform  it,  so 
they  are  not  made  villains  by  the  commission  of  a  crime, 
but  were  villains  before  they  committed  it ;  and  that  the 
right  of  public  interference  with  their  conduct  begins 
when  they  begin  to  corrupt  themselves ; — not  merely  at 
the  moment  when  they  have  proved  themselves  hope- 
lessly corrupt. 

All  measures  of  reformation  are  effective  in  exact 
proportion  to  their  timeliness :  partial  decay  may  be 
cut  away  and  cleansed  ;  incipient  error  corrected  :  but 
there  is  a  point  at  which  corruption  can  no  more  be 
stayed,  nor  wandering  recalled.  It  has  been  the  manner 
of  modern  philanthropy  to  remain  passive  until  that  pre- 
cise period,  and  to  leave  the  sick  to  perish,  and  the  fool- 
ish to  stray,  while  it  spent  itself  in  frantic  exertions  to 
raise  the  dead,  and  reform  the  dust. 

The  recent  direction  of  a  great  weight  of  public  opin 
ion  against  capital  punishment  is,  I  trust,  the  Bign  of  an 
awakening  perception  that  punishment  is  the  last  and 
worst    instrument    in    the    hand&    of   the    legislator   foi 


128  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIE. 

the  prevention  of  crime.  The  true  instruments  of  re 
formation  are  employment  and  reward ; — not  punish 
merit.  Aid  the  willing,  honour  the  virtuous,  and  compel 
the  idle  into  occupation,  and  there  will  be  no  need  fci 
the  compelling  of  any  into  the  great  and  last  indolence  of 
death. 

129.  The  beginning  of  all  true  reformation  among  the 
criminal  classes  depends  on  the  establishment  of  institu- 
tions for  their  active  employment,  while  their  criminality 
is  still  unripe,  and  their  feelings  of  self-respect,  capacities 
of  affection,  and  sense  of  justice,  not  altogether  quenched. 
That  those  who  are  desirous  of  employment  should  always 
be  able  to  find  it,  will  hardly,  at  the  present  day,  be  dis- 
puted :  but  that  those  who  are  ■wwdesirous  of  employment 
should  of  all  persons  be  the  most  strictly  compelled  to  it, 
the  public  are  hardly  yet  convinced  ;  and  they  must  be 
convinced.  If  the  danger  of  the  principal  thoroughfares 
in  their  capital  city,  and  the  multiplication  of  crimes 
more  ghastly  than  ever  yet  disgraced  a  nominal  civiliza- 
tion, are  not  enough,  they  will  not  have  to  wait  long  be- 
fore they  receive  sterner  lessons.  For  our  neglect  of  the 
lower  orders  has  reached  a  point  at  which  it  begins  to 
bear  its  necessary  fruit,  and  every  day  makes  the  fields, 
not  whiter,  but  more  sable,  to  harvest. 

130.  The  general  principles  by  which  emplo}Tment 
should  be  regulated  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows  : — 

1.  There  being  three  great  classes  of  mechanical  pow- 
ers at  our  disposal,  namely,  (a)  vital  or  muscular  power  ; 


ATHENA    EST   THE    HEART.  129 

(b)  natural  mechanical  power  of  wind,  water,  and  electri- 
city;  and  (c)  artificially  produced  mechanical  power;  it  is 
the  first  principle  of  economy  to  use  all  available  vita] 
power  first,  then  the  inexpensive  natural  forces,  and  only 
at  last  to  have  recourse  to  artificial  power.  And  this 
because  it  is  always  better  for  a  man  to  work  with  his 
own  hands  to  feed  and  clothe  himself,  than  to  stand  idle 
while  a  machine  works  for  him  ;  and  if  he  cannot  by  all 
the  labour  healthily  possible  to  him,  feed  and  clothe  him- 
self, then  it  is  better  to  use  an  inexpensive  machine — as  a 
windmill  or  watermill — than  a  costly  one  like  a  steam- 
engine,  so  long  as  we  have  natural  force  enough  at  our 
disposal.  Whereas  at  present  we  continually  hear  econ- 
omists regret  that  the  water-power  of  the  cascades  or 
streams  of  a  country  should  be  lost,  but  hardly  ever  that 
the  muscular  power  of  its  idle  inhabitants  should  be  lost ; 
and,  again,  we  see  vast  districts,  as  the  south  of  Provence, 
where  a  strong  wind*  blows  steadily  all  day  long  for  six 
days  out  of  seven  throughout  the  year,  without  a  wind- 
mill, while  men  are  continually  employed  a  hundred 
miles  to  the  north,  in  digging  fuel  to  obtain  artificial 
power.  But  the  principal  point  of  all  to  be  kept  in  view 
is,  that  in  every  idle  arm  and  shoulder  throughout  the 
country  there  is  a  certain  quantity  of  force,  equivalent  to 
the  force  of  so  much  fuel ;    and  that  it  is  mere   insane 

*  In  order  fully  to  utilize  this  natural  power,  we  only  require 
machinery  to  turn  the  variable  into  a  constant  velocity — no  insur 
mountable  difficulty 

6* 


130  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

waste  to  dig  for  coal  for  our  force,  while  the  vital  force  is 
unused  ;  and  not  only  unused,  but,  in  being  so,  corrupt- 
ing and  polluting  itself.  We  waste  our  coal,  and  spoil 
our  humanity  at  one  and  the  same  instant.  Therefore, 
wherever  there  is  an  idle  arm,  always  save  coal  with  it, 
and  the  stores  of  England  will  last  all  the  longer.  And 
precisely  the  same  argument  answers  the  common  one 
about  "  taking  employment  out  of  the  hands  of  the  indus- 
trious labourer."  Why,  what  is  "  employment "  but  the 
putting  out  of  vital  force  instead  of  mechanical  force  ? 
We  »-e  continually  in  search  of  means  of  strength, — to 
pull,  to  hammer,  to  fetch-,  to  carry  ;  we  waste  our  future 
resources  to  get  this  strength,  while  we  leave  all  the  liv- 
ing fuel  to  burn  itself  out  in  mere  pestiferous  breath,  and 
production  of  its  variously  noisome  forms  of  ashes ! 
Clearly,  if  we  want  fire  .for  force,  we  want  men  for  force 
first.  The  industrious  hands  must  already  have  so  much 
to  do  that  they  can  do  no  more,  or  else  we  need  not  use 
machines  to  help  them.  Then  use  the  idle  hands  first. 
Instead  of  dragging  petroleum  with  a  steam-engine,  put 
it  on  a  canal,  and  drag  it  with  human  arms  and  shoul- 
ders. Petroleum  cannot  possibly  be  in  a  hurry  to  arrive 
anywhere.  We  can  always  order  that,  and  many  other 
things,  time  enough  before  we  want  it.  So,  the  carriage 
of  everything  which  does  not  spoil  by  keeping  may  most 
wholesomely  and  safely  be  done  by  water-traction  and 
Bailing  vessels ;  and  no  healthier  work  can  men  be  put  to, 
nor  better  discipline,  than  such  active  porterage. 


ATHENA  IN  THE  HEART.  131 

131.  (2nd.)  In  employing  all  the  muscular  power  at  our 
disposal  we  are  to  make  the  employments  we  choose  as 
educational  as  possible.  For  a  wholesome  human  employ- 
ment is  the  first  and  best  method  of  education,  mental  as 
well  as  bodily.  A  man  taught  to  plough,  row,  or  steer 
well,  and  a  woman  taught  to  cook  properly,  and  make  a 
dress  neatly,  are  already  educated  in  many  essential  moral 
habits.  Labour  considered  as  a  discipline  has  hitherto 
been  thought  of  only  for  criminals;  but  the  real  and 
noblest  function  of  labour  is  to  prevent  crime,  and  not 
to  be  ./ttfformatory,  but  Formatory. 

132.  The  third  great  principle  of  employment  is,  that 
whenever  there  is  pressure  of  poverty  to  be  met,  all 
enforced  occupation  should  be  directed  to  the  production 
of  useful  articles  only,  that  is  to  say,  of  food,  of  simple 
clothing,  of  lodging,  oi  of  the  means  of  conveying,  dis- 
tributing, and  preserving  these.  It  is  yet  little  under- 
stood by  economists,  and  not  at  all  by  the  public,  that 
the  employment  of  persons  in  a  useless  business  cannot 
relieve  ultimate  distress.  The  money  given  to  employ 
riband-makers  at  Coventry  is  merely  so  much  money 
withdrawn  from  what  would  have  employed  lace-mak- 
ers at  Honiton :  or  makers  of  something  else,  as  use- 
less, elsewhere.  We  must  spend  our  money  in  some 
way,  at  some  time,  and  it  cannot  at  any  time  be  spent 
without  employing  somebody.  If  we  gamble  it  away, 
the  person  who  wins  it  must  spend  it;  if  we  lose  it  ir 
a  railroad  speculation,  it  has  gone  into  some  one  else'* 


132  THE    QUEEN    OF  THE   AIR. 

pockets,  or  merely  gone  to  pay  navvies  for  making  a 
useless  embankment,  instead  of  to  pay  riband  or  outton 
makers  for  making  useless  ribands  or  buttons;  we  cannct 
lose  it  (unless  by  actually  destroying  it)  without  giving 
employment  of  some  kind ;  and  therefore,  whatever 
quantity  of  money  exists,  the  relative  quantity  of  em- 
ployment must  some  day  come  out  of  it ;  but  the  distress 
of  the  nation  signifies  that  the  employments  given  have 
produced  nothing  that  will  support  its  existence.  Men 
cannot  live  on  ribands,  or  buttons,  or  velvet,  or  by  going 
quickly  from  place  to  place;  and  every  coin  spent  in 
useless  ornament,  or  useless  motion,  is  so  much  with- 
drawn from  the  national  means  of  life.  One  of  the  most 
beautiful  uses  of  railroads  is  to  enable  A  to  travel  from 
the  town  of  X  to  take  away  the  business  of  B  in  the 
town  of  Y ;  while,  in  the  meantime,  B  travels  from  the 
town  of  Y  to  take  away  A's  business  in  the  town  of  X. 
But  the  national  wealth  is  not  increased  by  these  opera- 
tions. Whereas  every  coin  spent  in  cultivating  ground, 
in  repairing  lodging,  in  making  necessary  and  good  roads, 
in  preventing  danger  by  sea  or  land,  and  in  carriage  of 
food  or  fuel  where  they  are  required,  is  so  much  absolute 
and,  direct  gain  to  the  whole  nation.  To  cultivate  land 
round  Coventry  makes  living  easier  at  Honiton,  and  every 
acre  of  sand  gained  from  the  sea  in  Lincolnshire,  makes 
Kfe  easier  all  over  England. 

4th,  and  lastly.      Since  for  every  idle  person,  some  omi 
else  must  be  working  somewhere   to  provide  him  with 


ATHENA    IN    THE    HEART.  133 

clothes  and  food,  and  doing,  therefore,  double  the  quantity 
of  work  that  would  be  enough  for  his  own  needs,  it  is  only 
a  matter  of  pure  justice  to  compel  the  idle  person  to  work 
for  his  maintenance  himself.  The  conscription  has  been 
used  in  many  countries,  to  take  away  labourers  who  sup- 
ported their  families,  from  their  useful  work,  and  maintain 
them  for  purposes  chiefly  of  military  display  at  the  public 
expense.  Since  this  has  been  long  endured  by  the  most 
civilized  nations,  let  it  not  be  thought  that  they  would 
not  much  more  gladly  endure  a  conscription  which  should 
seize  only  the  vicious  and  idle,  already  living  by  criminal 
procedures  at  the  public  expense ;  and  which  should  dis 
cipline  and  educate  them  to  labour  which  would  not  only 
maintain  themselves,  but  be  serviceable  to  the  common- 
wealth. The  question  is  simply  this  : — we  must  feed  the 
drunkard,  vagabond,  and  thief; — but  shall  we  do  so  by 
letting  them  steal  their  food,  and  do  no  work  for  it  ?  or 
shall  we  give  them  their  food  in  appointed  quantity,  and 
enforce  their  doing  work  which  shall  be  worth  it  ?  and 
which,  in  process  of  time,  will  redeem  their  own  char- 
acters, and  make  them  happy  and  serviceable  members  of 
society  ? 

I  find  by  me  a  violent  little  fragment  of  undelivered 
lecture,  which  puts  this,  perhaps,  still  more  clearly.  Your 
idle  people,  (it  says,)  as  they  are  now,  are  not  merely 
waste  coal-beds.  They  are  explosive  coal-beds,  which  you 
pay  a  high  annual  rent  for.  You  are  keeping  all  these 
idle  persons,  remember,  at  far  greater  co6t  than  if  they 


134  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

were  busy.  Do  you  think  a  vicious  person  eats  less  tlmn 
an  honest  one  ?  or  that  it  is  cheaper  to  keep  a  bad  man 
drunk,  than  a  good  man  sober  ?  There  is,  I  suppose,  a 
dim  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  public,  that  they  don't  pay 
for  the  maintenance  of  people  they  don't  employ.  Thoso 
staggering  rascals  at  the  street  corner,  grouped  around  its 
splendid  angle  of  public-house,  we  fancy  they  are  no 
servants  of  ours  ?  that  we  pay  them  no  wages  ?  that  no 
cash  out  of  our  pockets  is  spent  over  that  beer-stained 
counter ! 

Whose  cash  is  it  then  they  are  spending  ?  It  is  not 
got  honestly  by  work.  You  know  that  much.  Where 
do  they  get  it  from  ?  Who  has  paid  for  their  dinner  and 
their  pot  ?  Those  fellows  can  only  live  in  one  of  two 
ways — by  pillage  or  beggary.  Their  annual  income  by 
thieving  comes  out  of  the  public  pocket,  you  will  admit. 
They  are  not  cheaply  fed,  so  far  as  they  are  fed  by  theft. 
But  the  rest  of  their  living — all  that  they  don't  steal — ■ 
they  must  beg.  Not  with  success  from  you,  you  think. 
Wise  as  benevolent,  you  never  gave  a  penny  in  "indis- 
criminate charity."  Well,  I  congratulate  you  on  the 
freedom  of  your  conscience  from  that  sin,  mine  being 
bitterly  burdened  with  the  memory  of  many  a  sixpence 
given  to  beggars  of  whom  I  knew  nothing,  but  that  they 
had  pale  faces  and  thin  waists.  But  it  is  not  that  kind  of 
street  beggary  that  the  vagabonds  of  our  people  chiefly 
practise.  It  is  home  beggary  that  is  the  worst  beggars 
trade.     Home  alms  which  it  is  their  worst  degradation  tc 


ATHENA  IN  THE  HEART.  135 

receive.  Those  scamps  know  well  enough  that  yon  and 
your  wisdom  are  worth  nothing  to  them.  They  won't 
beg  of  yon.  They  will  beg  of  their  sisters,  and  mothers, 
and  wives,  and  children,  and  of  any  one  else  who  is 
enough  ashamed  of  being  of  the  same  blood  with  them  to 
pay  to  keep  them  out  of  sight.  Every  one  of  those  black- 
guards  is  the  bane  of  a  family.  That  is  the  deadly  "  in- 
discriminate charity  " — the  charity  which  each  household 
pays  to  maintain  its  own  private  curse. 

133.  And  you  think  that  is  no  affair  of  yours  ?  and  that 
every  family  ought  to  watch  over  and  subdue  its  own  liv- 
ing plague?  Put  it  to  yourselves  this  way,  then  :  suppose 
you  knew  every  one  of  those  families  kept  an  idol  in  an 
inner  room — a  big-bellied  bronze  figure,  to  which  daily 
sacrifice  and  oblation  was  made ;  at  whose  feet  so  much 
beer  and  brandy  was  poured  out  every  morning  on  the 
ground  :  and  before  which,  every  night,  good  meat,  enough 
for  two  men's  keep,  was  set,  and  left,  till  it  was  putrid, 
and  then  carried  out  and  thrown  on  the  dunghill; — you 
would  put  an  end  to  that  form  of  idolatry  with  your  best 
diligence,  I  suppose.  You  would  understand  then  that 
the  beer,  and  brandy,  and  meat,  were  wasted ;  and  that 
the  burden  imposed  by  each  household  on  itself  lay  heavily 
through  them  on  the  whole  community  ?  But,  suppose 
farther,  that  this  idol  were  not  of  silent  and  quiet  bronze 
omly  5 — but  an  ingenious  mechanism,  wound  up  every 
morning,  to  run  itself  down  in  automatic  blasphemies  :  that 
it  struck  and  tore  with  its  hands  the  people  who  set  food 


136  THE    QUEEN    OF   THE    AIR. 

before  it ;  that  it  was  anointed  with  poisonous  unguentSj 
and  infected  the  air  for  miles  round.  You  would  interfere 
with  the  idolatry  then,  straightway?  Will  you  not  inter 
fere  with  it  now,  when  the  infection  that  the  venomous 
idol  spreads  is  not  merely  death — hut  sin  ? 

134.  So  far  the  old  lecture.  Returning  to  cool  English, 
the  end  of  the  matter  is,  that  sooner  or  later,  we  shall  have 
to  register  our  people ;  and  to  know  how  they  live ;  and  to 
make  sure,  if  they  are  capable  of  work,  that  right  work  is 
given  them  to  do. 

The  different  classes  of  work  for  which  bodies  of  men 
could  be  consistently  organized,  might  ultimately  become 
numerous ;  these  following  divisions  of  occupation  may 
at  once  be  suggested : — 

1.  Boad-making. — Good  roads  to  be  made,  wherever 
needed,  and  kept  in  repair ;  and  the  annual  loss  on  unfre- 
quented roads,  in  spoiled  horses,  strained  wheels,  and  time, 
done  awa}?  with. 

2.  Bringing  in  of  waste  land. — All  waste  lands  not  ne 
cessary  for  public  health,  to  be  made  accessible  and  grad- 
ually reclaimed  ;  chiefly  our  wide  and  waste  seashores. 
Not  our  mountains  nor  moorland.  Our  life  depends  on 
them,  more  than  on  the  best  arable  we  have. 

3.  Harbour-making. — The  deficiencies  of  safe  or  conve- 
nient harbourage  in  our  smaller  ports  to  be  remedied  ;  oth- 
er harbours  built  at  dangerous  points  of  coast,  and  a  dis- 
ciplined body  of  men  always  kept  in  connection  with  the 
pilot  and  life-boat  services.     There  is  room  for  every  ordei 


ATHENA    IN    THE    HEART.  137 

of  intelligence  in  this  work,  and  for  a  large  body  of  supe- 
rior officers. 

4.  'Porterage. — All  heavy  goods,  not  requiring  speed  in 
transit,  to  be  carried  (under  preventive  duty  on  transit  by 
railroad)  by  canal-boats,  employing  men  for  draught ;  and 
the  merchant-shipping  service  extended  by  sea ;  so  that  no 
ships  may  be  wrecked  for  want  of  hands,  while  there  are 
idle  ones  in  mischief  on  shore. 

5.  Repair  of  buildings. — A  body  of  men  in  various 
trades  to  be  kept  at  the  disposal  of  the  authorities  in  every 
large  town,  for  repair  of  buildings,  especially  the  houses 
of  the  poorer  orders,  who,  if  no  such  provision  were  made, 
could  not  employ  workmen  on  their  own  houses,  but  would 
simply  live  with  rent  walls  and  roofs. 

6.  Dressmaking. — Substantial  dress,  of  standard  mate- 
rial and  kind,  strong  shoes,  and  stout  bedding,  to  be  man- 
ufactured for  the  poor,  so  as  to  render  it  unnecessary  for 
them,  unless  by  extremity  of  improvidence,  to  wear  cast 
clothes,  or  be  without  sufficiency  of  clothing. 

7.  Works  of  Art. — Schools  to  be  established  on 
thoroughly  sound  principles  of  manufacture,  and  use 
of  materials,  and  with  sample  and,  for  given  periods,  un- 
alterable modes  of  work  ;  first,  in  pottery,  and  embracing 
gradually  metal  work,  sculpture,  and  decorative  paint- 
ing ;  the  two  points  insisted  upon,  in  distinction  from 
ordinary  commercial  establishments,  being  perfectness 
of  material  to  the  utmost  attainable  degree ;  and  the 
production  of  everything   by  hand-work,  for  the  specia. 


138  THE   QUEEN    OF   THE   AIR. 

purpose  of  developing  personal  power  and  skill  in  the 
workman. 

The  two  last  departments,  and  some  subordinate  branch- 
es of  the  others,  would  include  the  service  of  women  and 
children. 

I  give  now,  for  such  farther  illustration  as  they  contain 
of  the  points  I  desire  most  to  insist  upon  with  respect  both 
to  education  and  employment,  a  portion  of  the  series  of 
notes  published  some  time  ago  in  the  Art  Journal,  on  the 
opposition  of  Modesty  and  Liberty,  and  the  unescapable 
law  of  wise  restraint.  I  am  sorry  that  they  are  written 
obscurely  ; — and  it  may  be  thought  affectedly  : — but  the 
fact  is,  I  have  always  had  three  different  ways  of  writ- 
ing; one,  with  the  single  view  of  making  myself  under- 
stood, in  which  I  necessarily  omit  a  great  deal  of  what 
comes  into  my  head  : — another,  in  which  I  say  what  I  think 
ought  to  be  said,  in  what  I  suppose  to  be  the  best  words  I 
can  find  for  it ;  (which  is  in  reality  an  affected  style — be  it 
good  or  bad  ;)  and  my  third  way  of  writing  is  to  say  all 
that  comes  into  my  head  for  my  own  pleasure,  in  the  first 
words  that  come,  retouching  them  afterwards  into  (approx- 
imate) grammar.  These  notes  for  the  Art  Journal  were 
bo  written ;  and  I  like  them  myself,  of  course ;  but  ask  the 
reader's  pardon  for  their  confusedness. 

135.  "  Sir,  it  cannot  be  better  done." 

We  will  insist,  with  the  reader's  permission,  on  thiscom- 
fortful  saying  of  Albert  Durer's,  in  order  to  find  out,  if  we 
may,  what  Modesty  is ;  which  it  will  be  well  for  painters, 


ATHENA   m   THE   HEART.  139 

readers,  and  especially  critics,  to  know,  before  going  farther. 
What  it  is  ;  or,  rather,  who  she  is  ;  her  fingers  being  among 
the  deftest  in  laying  the  ground-threads  of  Aglaia's  Ces- 
tus 

For  this  same  opinion  of  Albert's  is  entertained  by  many 
other  people  respecting  their  own  doings — a  very  preva- 
lent opinion,  indeed,  I  find  it ;  and  the  answer  itself,  though 
rarely  made  with  the  Nuremberger's  crushing  decision,  is 
nevertheless  often  enough  intimated^  with  delicacy,  by  ar- 
tists of  all  countries,  in  their  various  dialects.  Neither  can 
it  always  be  held  an  entirely  modest  one,  as  it  assuredly 
was  in  the  man  who  would  sometimes  estimate  a  piece  of 
his  unconquerable  work  at  only  the  worth  of  a  plate  of 
fruit,  or  a  flask  of  wine — would  have  taken  even  one  "  fig 
for  it,",  kindly  offered  ;  or  given  it  royally  for  nothing,  to 
show  his  hand  to  a  fellow-king  of  his  own,  or  any  other 
craft — as.  Gainsborough  gave  the  "Boy  at  the  Stile"  for  a 
solo  on  the  violin.  ■  An  entirely  modest  saying,  I  repeat, 
in  him — not  always  in  us.  For  Modesty  is  "  the  measur- 
ing virtue,"  the  virtue  of  modes  or  limits.  She  is,  indeed, 
said  to  be  only  the  third  or  youngest  of  the  children  of  the 
cardinal  virtue,  Temperance;  and  apt  to  be  despised, being 
more  given  to  arithmetic,  and  other  vulgar  studies  (Cinde- 
rella-like) than  her  elder  sisters  :  but  she  is  useful  in  the 
household,  and  arrives  at  great  results  with  her  yard-measure 
and  slate-pencil — a  pretty  little  Marchande  des  Modes, 
cutting  her  dress  always  according  to  the  silk  (if  this  be  the 
proper  feminine  reading  of  "  coat  according  to  the  cloth  "), 


140  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIK. 

bo  that,  consulting  with  her  carefully  of  a  morning,  men 
get  to  know  not  cnlj  their  income,  but  their  inbeing — to 
know  themselves,  that  is,  in  a  ganger's  manner,  round,  and 
up  and  down — surface  and  contents;  what  is  in  them, and 
what  may  be  got  out  of  them  ;  and,  in  fine,  their  entire 
canon  of  weight  and  capacity.  That  yard-measure  of 
Modesty's,  lent  to  those  who  will  use  it,  is  a  curious  music- 
al reed,  and  will  go  round  and  round  waists  that  are  slen- 
der enough,  with  latent  melody  in  every  joint  of  it,  the 
dark  root  only  being  soundless,  moist  from  the  wave 
wherein 

"Null'  altra  piaata  che  facesse  fronda 
0  indurasse,  puote  aver  vita."  * 

But  when  the  little  sister  herself  takes  it  in  hand,  to  mea- 
sure things  outside  of  us  with,  the  joints  shoot  out  in  an 
amazing  manner:  the  four-square  walls  even  of  celestial 
cities  being  measurable  enough  by  that  reed  ;  and  the  way 
pointed  to  them,  though  only  to  be  followed,  or  even  seen, 
in  the  dim  starlight  shed  down  from  worlds  amidst  which 
there  is  no  name  of  Measure  any  more,  though  the  reality 
of  it  always.  For,  indeed,  to  all  true  modesty  the  neces- 
sary business  is  not  inlook,  but  outlook,  and  especially  uj>- 
look:  it  is  only  her  sister.  Shamefacedness,  who  is  known 
by  the  drooping  lashes — Modesty,  quite  otherwise,  by  her 
large  eyes  full  of  wonder ;  for  she  never  contemns  herself, 
nor  is  ashamed  of  herself,  but  forgets  herself — at  least  un- 
til she  has  done  something  worth  memory.     It  is  easy  to 

Purgalorin,i.  103. 


ATHENA   IN  THE   HEART.  141 

peep  and  potter  about  one's  own  deficiencies  in  a  qniet 
immodest  discontent ;  but  Modesty  is  so  pleased  •with 
other  people's  doings,  that  she  has  no  leisure  to  lament 
her  own  :  and  thus,  knowing  the  fresh  feeling  of  content- 
ment, unstained  with  thought  of  self,  she  does  not  fear 
being  pleased,  when  there  is  cause,  with  her  own  right 
ness,  as  with  another's,  saying  calmly,  "  Be  it  mine,  or 
yours,  or  whose  else's  it  may,  it  is  no  matter ;- — this  also  is 
well."  But  the  right  to  say  such  a  thing  depends  on 
continual  reverence,  and  manifold  sense  of  failure.  If  you 
have  known  yourself  to  have  failed,  you  may  trust,  when 
it  comes,  the  strange  consciousness  of  success  ;  if  you  have 
faithfully  loved  the  noble  work  of  others,  you  need  not 
fear  to  speak  with  respect  of  things  duly  done,  of  your 
own. 

136.  But  the  principal  good  that  comes  of  art's  being 
followed  in  this  reverent  feeling,  is  vitally  manifest  in  the 
associative  conditions  of  it.  Men  who  know  their  place, 
can  take  it  and  keep  it,  be  it  low  or  high,  contentedly  and 
firmly,  neither  yielding  nor  grasping;  and  the  harmony 
of  hand  and  thought  follows,  rendering  all  great  deeds  of 
art  possible — deeds  in  which  the  souls  of  men  meet  like 
the  jewels  in  the  windows  of  Aladdin's  palace,  the  little 
gems  and  the  large  all  equally  pure,  needing  no  cement 
but  the  fitting  of  facets;  while  the  associative^  work  cf 
immodest  men  is  all  jointless,  and  astir  with  wormy  am 
bition;  putridly  dissolute,  and  for  ever  on  the  crawl :  so 
that  if  it  cc  ne  together  for  a  time,  it  can  only  be  by  mo- 


142  THE   QUEEN   OF    THE   AIE. 

tamorphosis  through  flash  of  volcanic  fire  out  of  the  vale 
of  Sidcira,  vitrifying  the  clay  of  it,  and  fastening  the  slime, 
only  to  end  in  wilder  scattering  ;  according  to  the  fate  of 
those  oldest,  mightiest,  immodestest  of  builders,  of  whom 
it  is  told  in  scorn,  "  They  had  brick  for  stone,  and  slime 
had  they  for  mortar." 

137.  The  first  function  of  Modesty,  then,  being  this  re- 
cognition of  place,  her  second  is  the  recognition  of  law, 
and  delight  in  it,  for  the  sake  of  law  itself,  whether  her 
part  be  to  assert  it,  or  obey.  For  as  it  belongs  to  all  im- 
modesty to  defy  or  deny  law,  and  assert  privilege  and 
licence,  according  to  its  own  pleasure  (it  being  therefore 
rightly  called  " insolent"  that. is,  " custom-breaking,"  vio- 
lating some  usual  and  appointed  order  to  attain  for  itself 
greater  forwardness  or  power),  so  it  is  the  habit  of  all 
modesty  to  love  the  constancy  and  "  solemnity"  or,  liter- 
ally, "  accustomedness,"  of  law,  seeking  first  what  are  the 
solemn,  appointed,  inviolable  customs  and  general  orders 
of  nature,  and  of  the  Master  of  nature,  touching  the 
matter  in  hand ;  and  striving  to  put  itself,  as  habitually 
and  inviolably,  in  compliance  with  them.  Out  of  which 
habit,  once  established,  arises  what  is  rightly  called 
"  conscience,"  not  "  science  "  merely,  but  "  with-science," 
a  science  "  with  us,"  such  as  only  modest  creatures  can 
have — with  or  within  them — and  within  all  creation  be- 
sides, every  member  of  it,  strong  or  weak,  witnessing 
together,  and  joining  in  the  happy  consciousness  that  each 
one's  work  is  good ;  the  bee  also  being  profoundly  of  that 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEART.  14:3 

opinion ;  and  the  lark ;  and  the  swallow,  in  that  noisy,. 
but  modestly  upside-down,  Babel  of  hers,  under  the  eaves, 
with  its  unvolcanic  slime  for  mortar ;  and  the  two  ante 
who  are  asking  of  each  other  at  the  turn  of  that  little 
ant's-foot-worn  path  through  the  moss,  "lor  via  e  lor 
fortuna;"  and  the  builders  also,  who  built  yonder  pile 
of  cloud-marble  in  the  west,  and  the  gilder  who  gilded  it, 
and  is  gone  down  behind  it. 

138.  But  I  think  we  shall  better  understand  what  we 
ought  of  the  nature  of  Modesty,  and  of  her  opposite,  by 
taking  a  simple  instance  of  both,  in  the  practice  of  that 
art  of  music  which  the  wisest  have  agreed  in  thinking  the 
first  element  of  education  ;  gnly  I  must  ask  the  reader's 
patience  with  me  through  a  parenthesis. 

Among  the  foremost  men  whose  power  has  had  to 
assert  itself,  though  with  conquest,  yet  with  countless 
loss,  through  peculiarly  English  disadvantages  of  circum- 
stance, are  assuredly  to  be  ranked  together,  both  for 
honour  and  for  mourning,  Thomas  Bewick  and  George 
Cruikshank.  There  is,  however,  less  cause  for  regret 
in  the  instance  of  Bewick.  We  may  understand  that  it 
was  well  for  us  once  to  see  what  an  entirely  powerful 
painter's  genius,  and  an  entirely  keen  and  true  man's 
temper,  could  achieve,  together,  unhelped,  but  also  un- 
harmed, among  the  black  banks  and  wolds  of  Tyne.  But 
the  genius  of  Cruikshank  has  been  cast  away  in  an  utterly 
ghastly  and  lamentable  manner:  his  superb  line-work, 
worthy  of  any  class  of  subject,  and  his  powers  of  concep 


144  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   ATJR. 

tion  and  composition,  of  which  I  cannot  venture  to 
estimate  the  range  in  their  degraded  application,  hav- 
ing been  condemned,  bj  his  fate,  to  be  spent  either  ia 
rude  jesting,  or  in  vain  war  with  conditions  of  vice  too 
low  alike  for  record  or  rebuke,  among  the  dregs  of  the 
British  populace.  Yet  perhaps  I  am  wrong  in  regretting 
even  this :  it  may  be  an  appointed  lesson  for  futurity,  that 
the  art  of  the  best  English  etcher  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  spent  on  illustrations  of  the  lives  of  burglars  and 
drunkards,  should  one  day  be  seen  in  museums  beneath 
Greek  vases  fretted  with  drawings  of  the  wars  of  Troy,  or 
side  by  side  with  Durer's  "  Knight  and  Death." 

139.  Be  that  as  it  may,  I  am  at  present  glad  to  be  able 
to  refer  to  one  of  these  perpetuations,  by  his  strong  hand, 
of  such  human  character  as  our  faultless  British  constitu- 
tion occasionally  produces,  in  out-of-the-way  corners.  It 
is  among  his  illustrations  of  the  Irish  Rebellion,  and  repre- 
sents the  pillage  and  destruction  of  a  gentleman's  house 
by  the  mob.  They  have  made  a  heap  in  the  drawing- 
room  of  the  furniture  and  books,  to  set  first  fire  to ;  and 
are  tearing  np  the  floor  for  its  more  easily  kindled  planks : 
the  less  busily-disposed  meanwhile  hacking  round  in  rage, 
with  axes,  and  smashing  what  they  can  with  butt-ends 
of  guns.  I  do  not  care  to  follow  with  words  the  ghastly 
truth  of  the  picture  into  its  detail ;  but  the  most  expres- 
sive incident  of  the  whole,  and  the  one  immediately  to  my 
jmrpose,  is  this,  that  one  fellow  has  sat  himself  at  the 
piano,  on  which,  hitting  down  fiercely  with  his  clenched 


A.THENA   IN    THE    HEART.  145 

lists,  he  plays,  grinning,  such  tune  as  may  le  so  pro- 
ducible, to  which  melody  two  of  his  companions,  flourish- 
ing knotted  sticks,  dance,  after  their  manner,  on  the  top 
of  the  instrument. 

140.  1  think  vre  have  in  this  conception  as  perfect  an 
instance  as  we  require  of  the  lowest  supposable  phase 
of  immodest  or  licentious  art  in  music ;  the  "  inner  con- 
sciousness of  good  "  being  dim,  even  in  the  musician  and 
his  audience;  and  wholly  unsympathized  with,  and  un 
acknowledged,  by  the  Delphian,  Vestal,  and  all  other 
prophetic  and  cosmic  powers.  This  represented  scene 
came  into  my  mind  suddenly,  one  evening,  a  few  weeks 
ago,  in  contrast  with  another  which  I  was  watching  in  its 
reality ;  namely,  a  group  of  gentle  school-girls,  leaning 
over  Mr.  Charles  Halle  as  he  was  playing  a  variation 
on  "Home,  sweet  Home."  They  had  sustained  with 
unwonted  courage  the  glance  of  subdued  indignation  with 
which,  having  just  closed  a  rippling  melody  of  Sebastian 
Bach's,  (much  like  what  one  might  fancy  the  singing 
of  nightingales  would  be  if  they  fed  on  honey  instead 
of  flies),  he  turned  to  the  slight,  popular  air.  But  they 
had  their  own  associations  with  it,  and  besought  for.  and 
obtained  it;  and  pressed  close,  at  first,  in  vain,  to  see 
what  no  glance  could  follow,  the  traversing  of  the  fingers. 
They  soon  thought  no  more  of  seeing.  The  wet  eyes, 
round-open,  and  the  little  scarlet  upper  lips,  lifted,  and 
drawn  slightly  together,  in  passionate  glow  of  Titter 
wonder,    became    picture-like,  —  porcelain-like,  —  in    im>- 

7 


146  THE"  QUEEN   OF   TI1E    AIK. 

tionless  joy,  as  the  sweet  multitude  of  low  notes  fell 
in  their  timely  infinities,  like  summer  rain.  Only  La 
Robbia  himself  (nor  even  he,  unless  with  tenderer  use 
of  colour  than  is  usual  in  his  work)  could  have  rendered 
some  image  of  that  listening. 

141.  But  if  the  reader  can  give  due  vitality  in  his 
fancy  to  these  two  scenes,  he  will  have  in  them  represent- 
ative types,  clear  enough  for  all  future  purpose,  of  the 
several  agencies  of  debased  and  perfect  art.  And  the  in- 
terval may  easily  and  continuously  be  filled  by  mediate 
gradations.  Between  the  entirely  immodest,  unmeas- 
ured, and  (in  evil  sense)  unmannered,  execution  with  the 
fist ;  and  the  entirely  modest,  measured,  and  (in  the 
noblest  sense)  mannered,  or  moral'd,  execution  with  the 
finger ;  between  the  impatient  and  unpractised  doing, 
containing  in  itself  the  witness  of  lasting  impatience  and 
idleness  through  all  previous  life,  and  the  patient  and 
practised  doing,  containing  in  itself  the  witness  of  self- 
restraint  and  unwearied  toil  through  all  previous  life  ; — 
between  the  expressed  subject  and  sentiment  of  home  vio- 
lation, and  the  expressed  subject  and  sentiment  of  home 
love  ; — between  the  sympathy  of  audience,  given  in  irrev- 
erent and  contemptuous  rage,  joyless  as  the  rabidness  of 
a  dog,  and  the  sympathy  of  audience  given  in  an  almost 
appalled  humility  of  intense,  rapturous,  and  yet  entirely 
reasoning  and  reasonable  pleasure ; — between  these  two 
limits  of  octave,  the  reader  will  find  he  can  class,  accord- 
ing to  its  modesty,  usefulness,  and  grace,  or  beeomingness 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEART.  147 

all  other  musical  art.  For  although  purity  of  purpose 
and  fineness  of  execution  by  no  means  go  together, 
degree  to  degree,  (since  fine,  and  indeed  all  but  the  finest, 
work  is  often  spent  in  the  most  wanton  purpose — as  in  all 
our  modern  opera — and  the  rudest  execution  is  again 
often  joined  with  purest  purpose,  as  in  a  mother's  song  to 
her  child),  still  the  entire  accomplishment  of  music  is 
only  in  the  union  of  both.  For  the  difference  between 
that  "  all  but "  finest  and  "  finest"  is  an  infinite  one  ;  and 
besides  this,  however  the  power  of  the  performer,  once 
attained,  may  be  afterwards  misdirected,  in  slavery  to 
popular  passion  or  childishness,  and  spend  itself,  at  its 
sweetest,  in  idle  melodies,  cold  and  ephemeral  (like  Mi- 
chael Angelo's  snow  statue  in  the  other  art),  or  else  in 
vicious  difficulty  and  miserable  noise — crackling  of  thorns 
under' the  pot  of  public  sensuality — still,  the  attainment 
of  this  power,  and  the  maintenance  of  it,  involve  always 
in  the  executant  some  virtue  or  courage  of  high  kind ;  the 
understanding  of  which,  and  of  the  difference  between 
the  discipline  which  develops  it  and  the  disorderly  efforts 
of  the  amateur,  it  will  be  one  of  our  first  businesses  to 
estimate  rightly.  And  though  not  indeed  by  degree  to 
degree,  yet  in  essential  relation  (as  of  winds  to  waves,  the 
one  being  always  the  true  cause  of  the  other,  though  they 
are  not  necessarily  of  equal  force  at  the  same  time), 
we  shall  find  vice  in  its  varieties,  with  art-failure, — 
and  virtue  in  its  varieties,  with  art-success, — fall  and  rise 
together :  the  peasant-girl's  song  at  her  spinning-wheel. 


148  THE   QUEEN    OF   THE   AIB. 

the  peasant-labourer's  "  to  the  oaks  and  rills," — dome» 
tic  music,  feebly  yet  sensitively  skilful, — music  fof 
the  multitude,  of  beneficent,  or  of  traitorous  power, — 
dance-jnelodies,  pure  and  orderly,  or  foul  and  frantic, — 
march-music,  blatant  in  mere  fever  of  animal  pugna- 
city, or  majestic  with  force  of  national  duty  and  mem- 
ory,— song-music,  reckless,  sensual,  sickly,  slovenly,  for- 
getful even  of  the  foolish  words  it  effaces  with  foolish 
noise, — or  thoughtful,  sacred,  healthful,  artful,  for  ever 
sanctifying  noble  thought  with  separately  distinguished 
loveliness  of  belonging  sound, — all  these  families  and 
gradations  of  good  or  evil,  however  mingled,  follow,  in  so 
far  as  they  are  good,  one  constant  law  of  virtue  (or  "  life- 
strength,"  which  is  the  literal  meaning  of  the  word,  and 
its  intended  one,  in  wise  men's  mouths),  and  in  so  far  as 
they  are  evil,  are  evil  by  outlawry  and  un virtue,  or  death- 
weakness.  Then,  passing  wholly  beyond  the  domain  of 
death,  we  may  still  imagine  the  ascendant  nobleness  of 
the  art,  through  all  the  concordant  life  of  incorrupt  crea- 
tures, and  a  continually  deeper  harmony  of  "puissant 
words  and  murmurs  made  to  bless,"  until  we  reach 

"  The  undisturbed  song  of  pure  consent, 
Aye  sung  before  the  sapphire-coloured  throne." 

142.  And  so  far  as  the  sister  arts  can  be  conceived  to 
have  place  or  office,  their  virtues  are  subject  to  a  law  ab- 
solutely the  same  as  that  of  music,  only  extending  its 
authority  into  more  various  conditions,  owing  to  the  in- 
troduction of  a  distinctly  representative  and   historical 


ATHENA   m  THE   HEART.  149 

power,  which  acts  under  logical  as  well  as  mathematical 
restrictions,  and  is  capable  of  endlessly  changeful  fault,  fal- 
lacy, and  defeat,  as  well  as  of  endlessly  manifold  victory. 

143.  Next  to  Modesty,  and  her  delight  in  measures,  let 
lis  reflect  a  little  on  the  character  of  her  adversary,  the 
Goddess  of  Liberty,  and  her  delight  in  absence  of  measures, 
or  in  false  ones.  It  is  true  that  there  are  liberties  and 
liberties.  Yonder  torrent,  crystal-clear,  and  arrow-swift, 
with  its  spray  leaping  into  the  air  like  white  troops  of 
fawns,  is  free  enough.  Lost,  presently,  amidst  bankless, 
boundless  marsh — soaking  in  slow  shallowness,  as  it  will, 
hither  and  thither,  listless,  among  the  poisonous  reeds  and 
unresisting  slime — it  is  free  also.  We  may  choose  which 
liberty  we  like, — the  restraint  of  voiceful  rock,  or  the 
dumb  and  edgeless  shore  of  darkened  sand.  Of  that  evil 
liberty,  which  men  are  now  glorifying,  and  proclaiming 
as  essence  of  gospel  to  all  the  earth,  and  will  presently,  1 
suppose,  proclaim  also  to  the  stars,  with  invitation  to  them 
out  of  their  courses, — and  of  its  opposite  continence,  which 
is  the  clasp  and  %pv<rti  a-^om?  of  Aglaia's  cestus,  we  must 
try  to  find  out  something  true.  For  no  quality  of  Art  1ms 
been  more  powerful  in  its  influence  on  public  mind  ;  none 
is  more  frequently  the  subject  of  popular  praise,  or  the 
end  of  vulgar  effort,  than  what  we  call  "  Freedom."  It 
is  necessary  to  determine  the  justice  or  injustice  of  this 
popular  praise. 

141.  I  said,  a  little  while  ago,  that  the  practical  teach- 
ing of  the  masters  of  Art  was  summed  by  the  O  of  Giotto 


150  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   ATR. 

"  You  may  judge  my  masterhood  of  craft,"  Giotto  tells  us. 
"  by  seeing  that  I  can  draw  a  circle  unerringly."  And 
we  may  safely  believe  him,  understanding  him  to  mean, 
that — -though  more  may  be  necessary  to  an  artist  than 
such  a  power — at  least  this  power  is  necessary.  The 
qualities  of  hand  and  eye  needful  to  do  this  are  the  first 
conditions  of  artistic  craft. 

145.  Try  to  draw  a  circle  yourself  with  the  "  free " 
hand,  and  with  a  single  line.  You  cannot  do  it  if  your 
hand  trembles,  nor  if  it  hesitates,  nor  if  it  is  unmanageable, 
nor  if  it  is  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word  "  free."  So 
far  from  being  free,  it  must  be  under  a  control  as  absolute 
and  accurate  as  if  it  were  fastened  to  an  inflexible  bar  of 
steel.  And  yet  it  must  move,  under  this  necessary  con- 
trol, with  perfect,  un  tormented  serenity  of  ease. 

146.  That  is  the  condition  of  all  good  work  whatso- 
ever. All  freedom  is  error.  Every  line  you  lay  down  is 
either  right  or  wrong  :  it  may  be  timidly  and  awkwardly 
wrong,  or  fearlessly  and  impudently  wrong :  the  aspect  of 
the  impudent  wrongness  is  pleasurable  to  vulgar  persons  ; 
and  is  what  they  commonly  call  "  free "  execution  :  the 
timid,  tottering,  hesitating  wrongness  is  rarely  so  attract- 
ive ;  yet  sometimes,  if  accompanied  with  good  qualities, 
and  right  aims  in  other  directions,  it  becomes  in  a  manner 
charming,  like  the  inarticulateness  of  a  child  :  but,  what- 
ever the  charm  or  manner  of  the  error,  there  is  but 
one  question  ultimately  to  be  asked  respecting  every  line 
you  draw,  Is  it  right  or  wrong  ?    If  right,  it  most  assuredly 


ATHENA    IN   THE    HEART.  151 

is  not  a  "  free  "  Hue,  but  an  intensely  continent,  restrained. 
and  considered  line  ;  and  the  action  of  the  hand  in  hiving 
it  is  just  as  decisive,  and  jiist  as  "  free  "  as  the  hand  of  a 
firstrate  surgeon  in  a  critical  incision.  A  great  operator 
told  me  that  his  hand  could  check  itself  within  about  the 
two-hundredth  of  an  inch,  in  penetrating  a  membrane; 
and  this,  of  course,  without  the  help  of  sight,  by  sensation 
only.  With  help  of  sight,  and  in  action  on  a  substance 
which  does  not  quiver  nor  yield,  a  fine  artist's  line  is  mea- 
surable in  its  proposed  direction  to  considerably  less  than 
the  thousandth  of  an  inch. 
A  wide  freedom,  truly ! 
'  147.  The  conditions  of  popular  art  which  most  foster 
the  common  ideas  about  freedom,  are  merely  results  of 
irregularly  energetic  effort  by  men  imperfectly  educated ; 
these  conditions  being  variously  mingled  with  cruder 
mannerisms  resulting  from  timidity,  or  actual  imperfec- 
tion of  body.  Northern  hands  and  eyes  are,  of  course, 
never  so  subtle  as  Southern ;  and  in  very  cold  countries, 
artistic  execution  is  palsied.  The  effort  to  break  through 
this  timidity,  or  to  refine  the  bluntness,  may  lead  to  a  li- 
centious impetuosity,  or  an  ostentatious  minuteness.  Every 
man's  manner  has  this  kind  of  relation  to  some  defect  in 
his  physical  powers  or  modes  of  thought;  so  that  in  the 
.greatest  worlc  there  is  no  manner  visible.  It  is  at  first 
uninteresting  from  its  quietness;  the  majesty  of  restrained 
power  only  dawns  gradually  upon  us,  as  we  walk  towards 
its  horizon. 


152  THE   QUEEN    01    THE   AIR. 

There  is,  indeed,  often  great  delightfulness  in  the  in- 
nocent manners  of  artists  who  l.ave  real  power  and  hon- 
esty, and  draw,  in  this  way  or  that,  as  best  they  can, 
under  such  and  such  untoward  circumstances  of  life.  But 
the  greater  part  of  the  looseness,  flimsiness,  or  audacity 
of  modern  work  is  the  expression  of  an  inner  spirit  of 
licence  in  mind  and  heart,  connected,  as  I  said,  with  the 
peculiar  folly  of  this  age,  its  hope  of,  and  trust  in,  "lib- 
erty." Of  which  we  must  reason  a  little  in  more  general 
terms. 

148.  I  believe  we  can  nowhere  find  a  better  type  of  a 
perfectly  free  creature  than  in  the  common  house  fly. 
Nor  free  only,  but  brave ;  and  irreverent  to  a  degree 
which  I  think  no  human  republican  could  by  any  phi- 
losophy exalt  himself  to.  There  is  no  courtesy  in  him ; 
he  does  not  care  whether  it  is  king  or  clown  whom  he 
teases ;  and  in  every  step  of  his  swift  mechanical  march, 
and  in  every  pause  of  his  resolute  observation,  there  is  one 
and  the  same  expression  of  perfect  egotism,  perfect  inde- 
pendence and  self-confidence,  and  conviction  of  the  world's 
having  been  made  for  flies.  Strike  at  him  with  your 
hand  ;  and  to  him,  the  mechanical  fact  and  external  as- 
pect of  the  matter  is,  what  to  you  it  would  be,  if  an  acre 
of  red  clay,  ten  feet  thick,  tore  itself  up  from  the  ground 
in  one  massive  field,  hovered  over  you  in  "the  air  for  a . 
second,  and  came  crashing  down  with  an  aim.  That  is 
the  external  aspect  of  it ;  the  inner  aspect,  to  his  fly's 
mind,  is  of  a  quite  natural  and  unimportant  occurrence — 


ATHENA    IN"   THE    HEART.  153 

one  of  the  momentary  conditions  of  his  active  life.  He 
steps  out  of  the  way  of  your  hand,  and  alights  on  the 
back  of  it.  You  cannot  terrify  him,  nor  govern  him,  noi 
persuade  him,  nor  convince  him.  He  has  his  own  posi- 
tive opinion  on  all  matters  ;  not  an  unwise  one,  usually, 
for  his  own  ends ;  and  will  ask  no  advice  of  yours.  He 
has  no  work  to  do — no  tyrannical  instinct  to  obey.  The 
earthworm  has  his  digging;  the  bee  her  gathering  and 
building ;  the  spider  her  cunning  net-work ;  the  ant  her 
treasury  and  accounts.  All  these  are  comparatively  slaves, 
or  people  of  vulgar  business.  But  your  fly,  free  in  the  air, 
free  in  the  chamber — a  black  incarnation  of  caprice — 
wandering,  investigating,  flitting,  flirting,  feasting  at  his 
will,  with  rich  variety  of  choice  in  feast,  from  the  heaped 
sweets  in  the  grocer's  window  to  those  of  the  butcher's 
back -yard,  and  from  the  galled  place  on  your  cab-horse's 
back,  to  the  brown  spot  in  the  road,  from  which,  as  the 
hoof  disturbs  him,  he  rises  with  angry  republican  buzz — 
what  freedom  is  like  his  ? 

149.  For  captivity,  again,  perhaps  your  poor  watch- 
dog is  as  sorrowful  a  type  as  you  will  easily  find.  Mine 
certainly  is.  The  day  is  lovely,  but  I  must  write  this, 
and  cannot  go  out  with  him.  He  is  chained  in  the 
yard,  because  I  do  not  like  dogs  in  rooms,  and  the  gar- 
dener docs  not  like  dogs  in  gardens.  He  has  no  books, — 
nothing  but  his  own  weary  thoughts  for  company,  and  a 
group  of  those  free  flies,  whom  he  snaps  at,  with  sullen  ill 
success.     Such  dim  hope  as  he  may  have  that  I  may  yet 

7* 


154  THE    QUEEN   OF    THE    Am. 

take  him  out  with  me,  will  be,  hour  by  hour,  wearily  dis 
appointed;  or,  worse,  darkened  at  once  into  a  leaden  de 
spair  by  an  authoritative  "No" — too  well  understood. 
His  fidelity  only  seals  his  fate ;  if  he  would  not  watch  for 
me,  he  would  be  sent  away,  and  go  hunting  with  some 
happier  master :  but  he  watches,  and  is  wise,  and  faithful 
and  miserable :  and  his  high  animal  intellect  only  gives 
him  the  wistful  powers  of  wonder,  and  sorrow,  and  desire, 
and  affection,  which  embitter  his  captivity.  Yet  of  the 
two,  would  we  rather  be  watch-dog,  or  fly? 

150.  Indeed,  the  first  point  we  have  all  to  determine  is 
not  how  free  we  are,  but  what  kind  of  creatures  we  are. 
It  is  of  small  importance  to  any  of  us  whether  we  get 
liberty  ;  but  of  the  greatest  that  we  deserve  it.  Whether 
we  can  win  it,  fate  must  determine ;  but  that  we  will  be 
worthy  of  it,  we  may  ourselves  determine ;  and  the  sor- 
rowfullest  fate,  of  all  that  we  can  suffer,  is  to  have  it, 
without  deserving  it. 

151.  I  have  hardly  patience  to  hold  my  pen  and  go  on 
writing,  as  I  remember  (I  would  that  it  were  possible  for 
a  few  consecutive  instants  to  forget)  the  infinite  follies  of 
modern  thought  in  this  matter,  centred  in  the  notion  that 
liberty  is  good  for  a  man,  irrespectively  of  the  use  he  is 
likely  to  make  of  it.  Folly  unfathomable  !  unspeakable  ! 
unendurable  to  look  in  the  full  face  of,  as  the  laugh  of  a 
cretin.  You  will  send  your  child,  will  you,  into  a  room 
where  the  table  is  loaded  with  sweet  wine  and  fruit — 
Borne  poisoned,  some  not  ? — you  will  say  to  him,  "  Choose 


ATHENA  IN  THE  HEART.  155 

freely,  iny  little  child  !  It  is  so  good  for  yon  to  Lave  free- 
dom of  choice  :  it  forms  your  character — your  individu- 
ality !  If  you  take  the  wrong  cup,  or  the  wrong  berry, 
you  will  die  before  the  day  is  over,  but  you  will  have  ac 
quired  the  dignity  of  a  Free  child  ?  " 

152.  You  think  that  puts  the  case  too  sharply  ?  I  tell 
you,  lover  of  liberty,  there  is  no  choice  offered  to  you,  but 
it  is  similarly  between  life  and  death.  There  is  no  act, 
nor  option  of  act,  possible,  but  the  wrong  deed  or  option 
has  poison  in  it  which  will  stay  in  your  veins  thereafter 
for  ever.  Never  more  to  all  eternity  can  you  be  as'  you 
might  ha\e  been,  had  you  not  done  that — chosen  that. 
You  have  "  formed  your  character,"  forsooth  !  No  ;  if 
you  have  chosen  ill,  you  have  De-formed  it,  and  that  for 
ever!  In  some  choices,  it  had  been  better  for  you  that  a 
red  hot  iron  bar  had  struck  you  aside,  scarred  and  helpless, 
than  that  you  had  so  chosen.  "  You  will  know  better 
next  time ! "  No.  Next  time  will  never  come.  Next 
time  the  choice  will  be  in  quite  another  aspect — between 
quite  different  things, — you,  weaker  than  you  were  by 
the  evil  into  which  you  have  fallen  ;  it,  more  doubtful 
than  it  was,  by  the  increased  dimness  of  your  sight.  No 
one  ever  gets  wiser  by  doing  wrong,  nor  stronger.  Yon 
will  get  wiser  and  stronger  only  by  doing  right,  whether 
forced  or  not ;  the  prime,  the  one  need  is  to  do  that,  under 
whatever  compulsion,  until  you  can  do  it  without  con - 
pulsion.     And  then  you  are  a  Man. 

153.  "What  !  "  a  wayward  youth  might  perhaps  answer, 


156  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

incredulously ;  "  no  one  ever  gets  wiser  by  doing  -wrong  ? 
Shall  I  not  know  the  world  best  by  trying  the  wrong  of 
it,  and  repenting  ?  Have  I  not,  even  as  it  is,  learned 
much  by  many  of -my  errors?"  Indeed,  the  effort  by 
which  partially  you  recovered  yourself  was  precious ; 
that  part  of  your  thought  by  which  you  discerned 
the  error  was  precious.  What  wisdom  and  strength 
you  kept,  and  rightly  used,  are  rewarded  ;  and  in  the  pain 
and  the  repentance,  and  in  the  acquaintance  with  the 
aspects  of  folly  and  sin,  you  have  learned  something ; 
how  much  less  than  you  would  have  learned  in  right 
paths,  can  never  be  told,  but  that  it  is  less  is  certain. 
Your  liberty  of  choice  has  simply  destroyed  for  you  so 
much  life  and  strength,  never  regainable.  It  is  true  you 
now  know  the  habits  of  swine,  and  the  taste  of  husks :  do 
you  think  your  father  could  not  have  taught  you  to  know 
better  habits  and  pleasanter  tastes,  if  you  had  stayed  in 
his  house ;  and  that  the  knowledge  you  have  lost  would 
not  have  been  more,  as  well  as  sweeter,  than  that  you 
have  gained  ?  But  "  it  so  forms  my  individuality  to  be 
free  ! "  Tour  individuality  was  given  you  by  God,  and 
in  your  race  ;  and  if  you  have  any  to  speak  of,  you  will 
want  no  liberty.  You  will  want  a  den  to  work  in,  and 
peace,  and  light — no  more, — in  absolute  need  ;  if  more, 
in  anywise,  it  will  still  not  be  liberty,  but  direction,  in 
struction,  reproof,  and  sympathy,  But  if  you  have  no 
individuality,  if  there  is  no  true  character  nor  true  desire 
in  you,  then  }*ou  will  indeed  want  to  be  free.     You  will 


ATHENA   EST   THE    HEART.  157 

begin  early ;  and,  as  a  boy,  desire  to  be  a  man ;  and,  as  a 
man,  think  yourself  as  good  as  every  other.  You  will 
choose  freely  to  eat,  freely  to  drink,  freely  to  stagger  and 
fall,  freely,  at  last,  to  curse  yourself  and  die.  Death  is 
the  only  real  freedom  possible  to  us :  and  that  is  consum- 
mate freedom, — permission  for  every  particle  in  the  rot- 
ting body  to  leave  its  neighbour  particle,  and  shift  for 
itself.  You  call  it  "  corruption  "  in  the  flesh  ;  but  before 
it  comes  to  that,  all  liberty  is  an  equal  corruption  in  mind. 
You  ask  for  freedom  of  thought ;  but  if  you  have  not 
sufficient  grounds  for  thought,  y'ou  have  no  business  to 
think  ;  and  if  you  have  sufficient  grounds,  you  have  no 
ousiness  to  think  wrong.  Only  one  thought  is  possible  to 
you,  if  you  are  wise — your  liberty  is  geometrically  pro- 
portionate to  your  folly. 

154.  "But  all  this  glory  and  activity  of  our  age  ;  what 
are  they  owing  to,  but  to  our  freedom  of  thought?  "  In 
a  measure,  they  are  owing — what  good  is  in  them — to  the 
discovery  of  many  lies,  and  the  escape  from  the  power  of 
evil.  Not  to  liberty,  but  to  the  deliverance  from  evil  or 
cruel  masters.  Brave  men  have  dared  to  examine  lies 
which  had  long  been  taught,  not  because  they  were  free- 
thinkers,  but  because  they  were  such  stern  and  close 
thinkers  that  the  lie  could  no  longer  escape  them.  Of 
course  the  restriction  of  thought,  or  of  its  expression,  by 
persecution,  is  merely  a  form  of  violence,  justifiable  or  not, 
as  other  violence  is,  according  to  the  character  of  the  yer- 
Bons  against  whom  it  is  exercised,  and  the  divine  andeter- 


158  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

nal  laws  which  it  vindicates  or  violates.  We  mnst  not 
burn  a  man  alive  for  saying  that  the  Athanasian  creed  is 
ungrammatical.  nor  stop  a  bishop's  salary  because  we  are 
getting  the  worst  of  an  argument  with  him ;  neither  must 
we  let  drunken  men  howl  in  the  public  streets  at  night. 
There  is  much  that  is  true  in  the  part  of  Mr.  Mill's  essay 
on  Liberty  which  treats  of  freedom  of  thought ;  some  im- 
portant truths  are  there  beautifully  expressed,  but  many, 
quite  vital,  are  omitted ;  and  the  balance,  therefore,  is 
wrongly  struck.  The  liberty  of  expression,  with  a  great 
nation,  would  become  like  that  in  a  well-educated  company, 
in  which  there  is  indeed  freedom  of  speech,  but  not  of 
clamour ;  or  like  that  in  an  orderly  senate,  in  which  men 
who  deserve  to  be  heard,  are  heard  in  due  time,  and  under 
determined  restrictions.  The  degree  of  liberty  you  can 
rightly  grant  to  a  number  of  men  is  in  the  inverse  ratio  of 
their  desire  for  it ;  and  a  general  hush,  or  call  to  order, 
would  be  often  very  desirable  in  this  England  of  ours.  For 
the  rest,  of  any  good  or  evil  extant,  it  is  impossible  to  say 
what  measure  is  owing  to  restraint,  and  what  to  licence 
where  the  right  is  balanced  between  them.  I  was  not  a 
little  provoked  one  clay,  a  summer  or  two  since,  in  Scot- 
land, because  the  Duke  of  Athol  hindered  me  from  exam- 
ining the  gneiss  and  slate  junctions  in  Glen  Tilt,  at  the 
hour  convenient  to  me;  but  I  saw  them  at  last,  and  in 
quietness ;  and  to  the  very  restriction  that  annoyed  me, 
owed,  probably,  the  fact  of  their  being  in  existence,  instead 
of  being  blasted  away  by   a  mob-company ;    while  the 


ATHENA    IN"    THE    HEART.  159 

"  free  "  paths  and  inlets  of  Loch  Katrine  ami  the  Lake  of 
Geneva  are  forever  trampled  down  and  destroyed,  not  by 
one  duke,  bat  by  tens  of  thousands  of  ignorant  tyrants. 

155.  So,  a  Dean  and  Chapter  may,  perhaps,  unjustifia- 
bly charge  me  twopence  for  seeing  a  cathedral ; — but  your 
free  mob  pulls  spire aad  all  down  about  my  ears,  and  lean 
see  it  no  more  for  ever.  And  even  if  I  cannot  get  up  to 
the  granite  junctions  in  the  glen,  the  stream  comes  down 
from  them  pure  to  the  Garry  ;  but  in  Beddington  Park  I 
am  stopped  by  the  newly  erected  fence  of  a  building  spec- 
ulator ;  and  the  bright  Wandel,  divine  of  waters  as  Cas- 
taly,  is  filled  by  the  free  public  with  old  shoes,  obscene 
crockery,  and  ashes. 

156.  In  fine,  the  arguments  for  liberty  may  in  general 
be  summed  in  a  few  very  simple  forms,  as  follows  : — 

Misguiding;  is  mischievous :  therefore  guiding  is. 

If  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  both  fall  into  the  ditch : 
therefore,  nobody  should  lead  anybody. 

Lambs  and  fawns  should  be  left  free  in  the  fields ; 
much  more  bears  and  wolves. 

If  a  man's  gun  and  shot  are  his  own,  he  may  fire  in 
any  direction  he  pleases. 

A  fence  across  a  road  is  inconvenient ;  much  more  one 
at  the  side  of  it. 

Babes  should  not  be  swaddled  with  their  hands  bound 
down  to  their  sides :  therefore  they  should  be  thrown  out 
to  roll  in  the  kennels  naked. 

None  of  these  arguments  are  good,  and  the  practical 


160  THE    QUEEN    OF    THE   AIR. 

issues  of  them  "are  worse.  For  there  are  certain  eternai 
laws  for  human  conduct  which  are  quite  clearly  discern 
ible  by  human  reason.  So  far  as  these  are  discovered  and 
obeyed,  by  whatever  machinery  or  authority  the  obedi- 
ence is  procured,  there  follow  life  and  strength.  So  far 
as  they  are  disobeyed,  by  whatever  good  intention  the 
disobedience  is  brought  about,  there  follow  ruin  and  sor- 
row. And  the  first  duty  of  every  man  in  the  world  is 
to  find  his  true  master,  and,  for  his  own  good,  submit  to 
him ;  and  to  find  his  true  inferior,  and,  for  that  inferior's 
good,  conquer  him.  The  punishment  is  sure,  if  we  either 
refuse  the  reverence,  or  are  too  cowardly  and  indolent 
to  enforce  the  compulsion.  A  base  nation  crucifies  or 
poisons  its  wise  men,  and  lets  its  fools  rave  and  rot  in 
its  streets.  A  wise  nation  obeys  the  one,  restrains  tho 
other,  and  cherishes  all. 

157.  The  best  examples  of  the  results  of  wise  normal 
discipline  in  Art  will  be  found  in  whatever  evidence  re- 
mains respecting  the  lives  of  great  Italian  painters, 
though,  unhappily,  in  eras  of  progress,  but  just  in  pro- 
portion to  the  admirableness  and  efficiency  of  the  life, 
will  be  usually  the  scantiness  of  its  history.  The  indi- 
vidualities and  liberties  which  are  causes  of  destruction 
may  be  recorded ;  but  the  loyal  conditions  of  daily 
breath  are  never  told.  Because  Leonardo  made  modela 
of  machines,  dug  canals,  built  fortifications,  and  dissi- 
pated half  his  art-power  in  capricious  ingenuities,  wfl 
have  many  anecdotes  of  him ; — but  no  picture  of  impor« 


ATHENA   IN   THE    HEART.  161 

tance  on  canvas,  and  only  a  few  withered  stains  of  one 
npon  a  wall.  But  because  his  pupil,  or  reputed  pupil, 
Luini,  laboured  in  constant  and  successful  simplicity,  we 
have  no  anecdotes  of  him ; — only  hundreds  of  noble 
works.  Luini  is,  perhaps,  the  best  central  type  of  the 
highly-trained  Italian  painter.  He  is  the  only  man  who 
entirely  united  the  religious  temper  which  was  the  spirit- 
life  of  art,  with  the  physical  power  which  was  its  bodily 
life.  He  joins  the  purity  and  passion  of  Angelico  to  the 
strength  of  Veronese :  the  two  elements,  poised  in  perfect 
balance,  are  so  calmed  and  restrained,  each  by  the  other, 
that  most  of  us  lose  the  sense  of  both.  The  artist  does 
not  see  the  strength,  by  reason  of  the  chastened  spirit  in 
which  it  is  used;  and  the  religious  visionary  does  not 
recognize  the  passion,  by  reason  of  the  frank  human 
truth  with  which  it  is  rendered.  He  is  a  man  ten  times 
greater  than  Leonardo ; — a  mighty  colourist,  while  Leo- 
nardo was  only  a  fine  draughtsman  in  black,  staining  the 
chiaroscuro  drawing,  like  a  coloured  print :  he  perceived 
and  rendered  the  delicatest  types  of  human  beauty  that 
have  been  painted  since  the  days  of  the  Greeks,  while 
Leonardo  depraved  his  finer  instincts  by  caricature,  and 
remained  to  the  end  of  his  days  the  slave  of  an  archaic 
smile :  and  he  is  a  designer  as  frank,  instinctive,  and  ex- 
haustless  as  Tintoret,  while  Leonardo's  design  is  only  an 
agony  of  science,  admired  chiefly  because  it  i3  painful, 
and  capable  of  analysis  in  its  best  accomplishment, 
Luini  has  left  nothing  behind  him  that  is  not  lovely :  but 


162  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE  AIB. 

of  his  life  I  believe  hardly  anything  is  known  beyond 
remnants  of  tradition  which  murmur  about  Lugano  and 
Saronno,  and  which  remain  ungleaned.  This  only  is  cer- 
tain, that  he  was  born  in  the  loveliest  district  of  North 
Italy,  where  hills,  and  streams,  and  air,  meet  in  softest 
harmonies.  Child  of  the  Alps,  and  of  their  divinest 
lake,  he  is  taught,  without  doubt  or  dismay,  a  lofty  re- 
ligious creed,  and  a  sufficient  law  of  life,  and  of  its 
mechanical  arts.  Whether  lessoned  by  Leonardo  him- 
self, or  merely  one  of  many,  disciplined  in  the  system  of 
the  Milanese  school,  he  learns  unerringly  to  draw,  un- 
erringly and  enduringly  to  paint.  His  tasks  are  set  him 
without  question  day  by  day,  by  men  who  are  justly 
satisfied  with  his  work,  and  who  accept  it  without  any 
harmful  praise,  or  senseless  blame.  Place,  scale,  and 
subject  are  determined  for  him  on  the  cloister  wall  or 
the  church  dome;  as  he  is  required,  and  for  sufficient 
daily  bread,  and  little  more,  he  paints  what  he  has  been 
taught  to  design  wisely,  and  has  passion  to  realize  glo- 
riously: every  touch  he  lays  is  eternal,  every  thought  he 
conceives  is  beautiful  and  pure :  his  hand  moves  always 
in  radiance  of  blessing ;  from  day  to  day  his  life  enlarges 
in  power  and  peace;  it  passes  away  cloudlessly,  the  starry 
twilight  remaining  arched  far  against  the  night. 

158.  Oppose  to  such  a  life  as  this  that  of  a  great 
painter  amidst  the  elements  of  modern  English  liberty. 
Take  the  life  of  Turner,  in  whom  the  artistic  energy  and 
inherent  love  of   beauty  were   at  least  as  strong  as  ir 


ATHENA   EN   THE   HEART.  163 

Luini :  but,  amidst  the  disorder  and  ghastliness  cf  the 
lower  streets  of  London,  his  instincts  in  early'  infancy 
were  warped  into  toleration  of  evil,  or  even  into  delight 
in  it.  He  gathers  what  he  can  of  instruction  by  ques- 
tioning and  prying  among  half-informed  masters ;  spells 
out  some  knowledge  of  classical  fable ;  educates  himself, 
by  an  admirable  force,  to  the  production  of  wildly  ma- 
jestic or  pathetically  tender  and  pure  pictures,  by  which 
he  cannot  live.  There  is  no  one  to  judge  them,  or  to 
command  him :  only  some  of  the  English  upper  classes 
hire  him  to  paint  their  houses  and  parks,  and  destroy 
the  drawings  afterwards  by  the  most  wanton  neglect. 
Tired  of  labouring  carefully,  without  either  reward  or 
praise,  he  dashes  out  into  various  experimental  and 
popular  works — makes  himself  the  servant  of  the  lower 
public,  and  is  dragged  hither  and  thither  at  their  will ; 
while  yet,  helpless  and  guideless,  he  indulges  his  idiosyn- 
crasies till  they  change  into  insanities ;  the  strength  of 
his  soul  increasing  its  sufferings,  and  giving  force  to  its 
errors;  all  the  purpose  of  life  degenerating  into  instinct; 
and  the  web  of  his  work  wrought,  at  last,  of  beauties  too 
subtle  to  be  understood,  his  liberty,  with  vices  too  singu- 
lar to  be  forgiven — all  useless,  because  magnificent  idio- 
syncrasy had  become  solitude,  or  contention,  in  the  midst 
of  a  reckless  populace,  instead  of  submitting  itself  in 
loyal  harmony  to  the  Art-laws  of  an  understanding  na- 
tion. And  the  life  passed  away  in  darkness;  and  its 
final   work,   in    all    the   best   beauty  of  it,  has   already 


164:  THE    QUEEN   OF   THE    AIR. 

perished,,  only  enough  remaining  to  teach  us  what  we 
have  lost. 

159.  These  are  the  opposite  effects  of  Law  and  of  Lib- 
erty on  men  of  the  highest  powers.  In  the  case  of  infe- 
riors the  contrast  is  still  more  fatal :  under  strict  law,  they 
become  the  subordinate  workers  in  great  schools,  healthily 
aiding,  echoing,  or  supplying,  with  multitudinous  force  of 
hand,  the  mind  of  the  leading  masters  :  they  are  the  name- 
less carvers  of  great  architecture — stainers  of  glass — ham- 
merers of  iron — helpful  scholars,  whose  work  ranks  round, 
if  not  with,  their  master's,  and  never  disgraces  it.  But  the 
inferiors  under  a  system  of  licence  for  the  most  part  perish 
in  miserable  effort  ;*  a  few  struggle  into  pernicious  emi- 

*  As  I  correct  this  sheet  for  press,  my  Pall  Mali  Gazette  of  last  Satur- 
day, April  17th,  is  lying  on  the  table  by  me.  I  print  a  few  lines  out  of 
it:— 

"An  Artist's  Death. — A  sad  story  was  told  at  an  inquest  held  in 
St.  Pancras  last  night  by  Dr.  Lankester  on  the  body  of  *  *  *,  aged 
fifty-nine,  a  French  artist,  who  was  found  dead  in  his  bed  at  his  rooms 
in  *  *  *  Street.  M.  *  *  *,  also  an  artist,  said  he  had  known  the  de- 
ceased for  fifteen  years.  He  once  held  a  high  position,  and  being  anx- 
ious to  make  a  name  in  th  world,  he  five  years  ago  commenced  a  large 
picture,  which  he  hoped,  when  completed,  to  have  in  the  gallery  at  Ver- 
sailles ;  and  with  that  view  he  sent  a  photograph  of  it  to  the  French 
Emperor.  He  also  had  an  idea  of  sending  it  to  the  English  Royal  Acad- 
emy. He  laboured  on  this  picture,  neglecting  other  work  which  would 
have  paid  him  well,  and  gradually  sank  lower  and  lower  into  poverty. 
His  friends  assisted  him,  but  being  absorbed  in  his  great  work,  he  did 
not  heed  their  advice,  and  they  left  him.  He  was,  however,  assisted 
by  the  French  Ambassador,  and  last  Saturday  he  (the  witness)  saw  de 


ATHENA    IN    THE    HEART.  105 

nence — harmful  alike  to  themselves  and  to  all  who  admire 
them ;  many  die  of  starvation  ;  many  insane,  either  in  weak- 
ness of  insolent  egotism,  like  Haydon,  or  in  a  conscientious 
agony  of  beautiful  purpose  and  warped  power,  like  Blake. 
There  is  no  probability  of  the  persistence  of  a  licentious 
school  in  any  good  accidentally  discovered  by  them  ;  there 
is  an  approximate  certainty  of  their  gathering,  with  ac- 
claim, round  any  shadow  of  evil,  and  following  it  to  what- 
ever quarter  of  destruction  it  may  lead. 

160.  Thus  far  the  notes  on  Freedom.  Now,  lastly,  here 
is  some  talk  which  I  tried  at  the  time  to  make  intelligible ; 
and  with  which  I  close  this  volume,  because  it  will  serve 
sufficiently  to  express  the  practical  relation  in  which  I 
think  the  art  aL  J  imagination  of  the  Greeks  stand  to  our 
own ;  and  will  fthow  the  reader  that  my  view  of  that  rela- 
tion is  unchanged,  from  the  first  day  on  which  I  began  to 
write,  until  now. 

eeased,  who  was  much  depressed  in  Bpirits,  as  he  expected  the  brokers 
to  be  put  in  possession  for  rent.  He  said  his  troubles  were  so  great  that 
he  f<ifTid  Uis  brain  would  give  way.  The  witness  gave  him  a  shilling, 
for  which  'ie  appeared  very  thankful  On  Monday  the  witness  called 
upon  him,  but  received  no  answer  to  his  knock.  He  went  again  on 
Tuesday,  and  entered  the  deceased's  bedroom  and  found  him  dead.  Dr. 
George  Ross  said  that  when  called  in  to  the  deceased  he  had  been  dead 
at  least  two  dayn.  The  room  was  in  a  fdthy  dirty  condition,  and  the 
picture  referred  to — certainly  a  very  fine  one— was  in  that  room.  The 
post-mortem  twunination  shewed  that  the  cause  of  death  was  fatty  de- 
generation ©i  tho  heart,  the  latter  probably  having  ceased  its  action 
through  tho  v/r  ijal  excitement  of  the  deceased. " 


166  THE    QCJEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 


The  Hekcules  of  Camaktna. 

Address  U<  the  Students  of  the  Art  School  of  South  Lambeth, 
March  15th,  1869. 

v 
161.  Among  the  photographs  of  Greek  coins  which  pre- 
sent so  many  admirable  subjects  for  your  study,  I  must 
speak  for  the  present  of  one  only:  the  Hercules  of  Cama- 
rina.  You  have,  represented  by  a  Greek  workman,  in  that 
coin,  the  face  of  a  man,  and  the  skin  of  a  lion's  head.  And 
the  man's  face  is  like  a  man's  face,  but  the  lion's  skin  is 
not  like  a  lion's  skin. 

162.  Now  there  are  some  people  who  will  tell  you  that 
Greek  art  is  fine,  because  it  is  true  ;  and  because  it  carves 
men's  faces  as  like  men's  faces  as  it  can. 

And  there  are  other  people  who  will  tell  you  that  Greek 
art  is  fine  because  it  is  not  true ;  and  carves  a  lion's  skin 
so  as  to  look' not  at  all  like  a  lion's  skin. 

And  you  fancy  that  one  or  other  of  these  sets  of  people 
must  be  wrong,  and  are  perhaps  much  puzzled  to  find  out 
which  you  should  believe. 

But  neither  of  them  are  wrong,  and  you  will  have  eventu- 
ally to  believe,  or  rather  to  understand  and  know,  in  recon- 
ciliation, the  truths  taught  by  each ; — but  for  the  present, 
the  teachers  of  the  first  group  are  those  you  must  follow. 

It  is  they  who  tell  you  the  deepest  and  usefullest  truth, 
which  involves  all  others  in  time.  Greek  art,  and  all 
otlwr  art,  is  fine  when  it  makes  a  man's  face  as  like  a 
man's  face  as  it  can.     Hold  to  that.     All  kinds  of  non 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEART.  167 

sense  are  talked  to  yon,  now-a-days,  ingeniously  and  irre- 
levantly about  art.  Therefore,  for  the  most  part  of  the 
day,  shut  your  ears,  and  keep  your  eyes  open  :  «,nd  under 
stand  primarily,  what  you  may,  I  fancy,  understand  easily 
that  the  greatest  masters  of  all  greatest  schools — Phidias, 
Donatello,  Titian,  Velasquez,  or  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds — all 
tried  to  make  human  creatures  as  like  human  creatures  aa 
they  could  ;  and  that  anything  less  like  humanity  than 
their  work,  is  not  so  good  as  theirs. 

Get  that  well  driven  into  your  heads ;  and  don't  let  it 
out  again,  at  your  peril. 

163.  Having  got  it  well  in,  you  may  then  farther  un- 
derstand, safely,  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  secondary 
work  in  pots,  and  pans,  and  floors,  and  carpets,  and 
shawls,  and  architectural  ornament,  which  ought,  essen- 
tially, to  be  unlike  reality,  and  to  depend  for  its  charm  on 
quite  other  qualities  than  imitative  ones.  But  all  such 
art  is  inferior  and  secondary — much  of  it  more  or  les8 
instinctive  and  animal,  and  a  civilized  human  creature 
can  only  learn  its  principles  rightly,  by  knowing  those  of 
great  civilized  art  first — which  is  always  the  representa- 
tion, to  the  utmost  of  its  power  of  whatever  it  has  got  to 
show — made  to  look  as  like  the  thing  as  possible.  Go 
into  the  National  Gallery,  and  h><>k  at  the  foot  of  Correg- 
gio's  Venus  there.  Correggio  made  it  as  like  a  foot  aa  he 
could,  and  you  won't  easily  find  anything  liker.  Now, 
you  will  find  on  any  Greek  vase  something  meant  tor  a 
foot,  or  a  hand,  which  is  not  at  all  like  one.     The  Greek 


168  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

vase  is  a  good  thing  in  its  way,  but  Correggio's  picture  ia 
the  best  work. 

164.  So,>  again,  go  into  the  Turner  room  of  the  Na- 
tional Gallery,  and  look  at  Turner's  drawing  of  "  Ivy 
Bridge."  You  will  find  the  water  in  it  is  like  real  water, 
and  the  ducks  in  it  are  like  real  ducks.  Then  go  into  the 
British  Museum,  and  look  for  an  Egyptian  landscape,  and 
you  will  find  the  water  in  that  constituted  of  blue  zig- 
zags, not  at  all  like  water  ;  and  ducks  in  the  middle  of  it 
made  of  red  lines,  looking  not  in  the  least  as  if  they  could 
stand  stuffing  with  sage  and  onions.  They  are  very  good 
in  their  way,  but  Turner's  are  better. 

165.  I  will  not  pause  to  fence  my  general  principle 
against  what  you  perfectly  well  know  of  the  due  contra- 
diction,— that  a  thing  may  be  painted  very  like,  yet 
painted  ill.  Rest  content  with  knowing  that  it  must  be 
like,  if  it  is  painted  well;  and  take  this  farther  general 
law  : — Imitation  is  like  charity.  When  it  is  done  for  love 
it  is  lovely ;  when  it  is  done  for  show,  hateful. 

166.  Well,  then,  this  Greek  coin  is  fine,  first,  because 
the  face  is  like  a  face.  Perhaps  you  think  there  is  some- 
thing particularly  handsome  in  the  face,  which  you  can't 
see  in  the  photograph,  or  can't  at  present  appreciate. 
But  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  is  a  very  regular, 
quiet,  commonplace  sort  of  face ;  and  any  average  Eng- 
lish gentleman's,  of  good  descent,  would  be  far  hand- 
somer. 

167.  Fix  that  in  your  heads  also,  therefore,  that  Greelj 


ATHENA   EST   THE   HEART.  169 

faces  are  not  particularly  beautiful.  Of  the  much  non- 
sense against  which  you  are  to  keep  your  ears  shut,  that 
which  is  talked  to  you  of  the  Greek  ideal  of  beauty,  m 
among  the  absolutest.  There  is  not  a  single  instance  of  a 
very  beautiful  head  left  by  the  highest  school  of  Greek 
art.  On  coins,  there  is  even  no  approximately  beautiful 
one.  The  Juno  of  Argos  is  a  virago  ;  the  Athena  of 
Athens  grotesque ;  the  Athena  of  Corinth  is  insipid  ;  and 
of  Thurium,  sensual.  The.  Siren  Ligeia,  and  fountain  of 
Arethusa,  on  the  coins  of  Term  a  and  Syracuse,  are  pret- 
tier, but  totally  without  expression,  and  chiefly  set  off  by 
their  well-curled  hair.  You  might  have  expected  some- 
thing subtle  in  Mercuries;  but  the  Mercury  of  iEnus  is  a 
very  stupid-looking  fellow,  in  a  cap  like  a  bowl,  with  a 
knobon  the  top  of  it.  The  Bacchus  of  Thasos  is  a  dray- 
man with  his  hair  pomatum'd.  The  Jupiter  of  Syracuse 
is,  however,  calm  and  refined  ;  and  the  Apollo  of  Clazo- 
menae  would  have  been  impressive,  if  he  had  not  come 
down  to  us  much  flattened  by  friction.  But  on  the  whole, 
the  merit  of  Greek  coins  does  not  primarily  depend  on 
beauty  of  features,  nor  even,  in  the  period  of  highest  art, 
that  of  the  statues.  You  may  take  the  Venus  of  Mel"-  a  ■ 
a  standard  of  beauty  of  the  central  Greek  type.  She  has 
tranquil,  regular,  and  lofty  features;  but  could  not  hold 
her  own  for  a  moment  against  the  beauty  of  a  simple 
Engli.-li  girl,  of  pure  race  and  kind  heart. 

168.  And   the   reason    that   Greek    art,   on   the   whole, 
bores  you,  (and  you  know  it  does,)  is  that  you  are  always 


170  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AIR. 

forced  to  look  in  it  for  something  that  is  not  there  ;  but 
which  may  be  seen  every  day,  in  real  life,  all  round  you; 
and  which  you  are  naturally  disposed  to  delight  in,  and 
ousdit  to  delio-ht  in.  For  the  Greek  race  was  not  at  all 
one  of  exalted  beauty,  but  only  of  general  and  healthy 
completeness  of  form.  They  were  only,  and  could  bo 
only,  beautiful  in  body  to  the  degree  that  they  were  beau- 
tiful in  soul;  (for  you  will  find,  when  you  read  deeply  into 
the  matter,  that  the  body  is  only  the  soul  made  visible) 
And  the  Greeks  were  indeed  very  good  people,  much 
better  people  than  most  of  us  think,  or  than  many  of  us 
are ;  but  there  are  better  people  alive  now  than  the  best 
of  them,  and  lovelier  people  to  be  seen  now,  than  the 
loveliest  of  them. 

169.  Then,  what  are  the  merits  of  this  Greek  art,  which 
make  it  so  exemplary  for  you?  "Well,  not  that  it  is  beau- 
tiful, but  that  it  is  Right.*  All  that  it  desires  to  do,  it 
does,  and  all  that  it  does,  does  well.  You  will  find,  aa 
you  advance  in  the  knowledge  of  art,  that  its  laws  of  self- 
restraiut  are  very  marvellous;  that  its  peace  of  heart,  and 
contentment  in  doing  a  simple  thing*  with  only  one  01 
two  qualities,  restrictedly  desired,  and  sufficiently  attain- 
ed, are  a  most  wholesome  element  of  education  for  yoUj 
as  opposed  to  the  wild  writhing,  an^l  wrestling,  and  long- 
ing for  the  moon,  and  tilting  at  windmills,  and  agony  of 
eyes,  and  torturing  of  fingers,  and  general  spinning  out 
of  one's  soul  into  fiddlestrings,  which  constitute  the  idea] 
life  of  a  modern  artist. 

'  Compare  r.bovo,  §  101. 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEART.  171 

Also  observe,  there  is  entire  masterhood  of  its  business  up 
to  the  required  point.  A  Greek  does  not  reach  after  other 
people's  strength,  nor  out-reach  his*  own.  He  nevei  tries 
to  paint  before  he  can  draw ;  he  never  tries  to  lay  on  flesh 
where  there  are  no  bones  ;  and  he  never  expects  to  find  the 
bones  of  anything  in  his  inner  consciousness.  Those  are 
his  first  merits — sincere  and  innocent  purpose,  strong  com- 
mon sense  and  principle,  and  all  the  strength  that  comes 
of  these,  and  all  the  grace  that  follows  on  that  strength. 

170.  But,  secondly,  Greek  art  is  always  exemplary  in 
disposition  of  masses,  which  is  a  thing  that  in  modern  days 
stadents  rarely  look  for,  artists  not  enough,  and  the  public 
never.  But,  whatever  else  Greek  work  may  fail  of,  you 
may  be  always  sure  its  masses  are  well  placed,  and  their 
placing  has  been  the  object  of  the  most  subtle  care.  Look, 
for  instance,  at  the  inscription  in  front  of  this  Hercules  of 
the  name  of  the  town — Camarina.  You  can't  read  it,  even 
though  you  may  know  Greek,  without  some  pains  ;  for  the 
sculptor  knew  well  enough  that  it  mattered  very  little 
whether  you  read  it  or  not,  for  the  Camarina  Hercules 
could  tell  his  own  story;  but  what  did  above  all  things 
matter  was,  that  no  K  or  A  or  J\I  should  come  in  a  wrong 
place  with  respect  to  the  outline  of  the  head,  and  divert 
the  eye  from  it,  or  spoil  any  of  its  lines.  So  the  whole 
inscription  is  thrown  into  a  sweeping  curve  of  grad nail y 
diminishing  size,  continuing  from  the  lion's  paws,  round 
the  neck,  up  to  the  forehead,  and  answering  a  decorative 
purpose  as  completely  as  the  curls  of  the  mane   oppi 


172  THE   QUEEN   OF  THE   AIR. 

Of  these,  again,  you  cannot  change  or  displace  one  with- 
out mischief:  they  are  almost  as  even  in  reticulation  as  a 
piece  of  basket-work  ;  but  each  has  a  different  form  and  ,a 
due  relation  to  the  rest,  and  if  you  set  to  work  to  draw 
that  mane  rightly,  you  will  find  that,  whatever  time  you 
give  to  it,  you  can't  get  the  tresses  quite  into  their  places, 
and  that  every  tress  out  of  its  place  does  an  injury.  If  you 
want  to  test  your  powers  of  accurate  drawing,  you  maj 
make  that  lion's  mane  your  pons  asinorum.  I  have  nevei 
yet  met  with  a  student  who  didn't  make  an  ass  in  a  lion's 
skin  of  himself,  when  he  tried  it. 

171.  Granted,  however,  that  these  tresses  may  be  finely 
placed,  still  the}T  are  not  like  a  lion's  mane.  So  we  come 
back  to  the  question, — if  the  face  is  to  belike  a  man's  face, 
why  is  not  the  lion's  mane  to  be  like  a  lion's  mane  ?  Well, 
because*it  can't  be  like  a  lion's  mane  without  too  much 
trouble  ; — and  inconvenience  after  that,  and  poor  success, 
after  all.  Too  much  trouble,  in  cutting  the  die  into  fine 
fringes  and  jags ;  inconvenience  after  that, — because 
fringes  and  jags  would  spoil  the  surface  of  a  coin  ;  poor 
success  after  all, — because,  though  you  can  easily  stamp 
cheeks  and  foreheads  smooth  at  a  blow,  you  can't  stamp 
projecting  tresses  fine  at  a  blow,  whatever  pains  you  take 
with  your  die. 

So  your  Greek  uses  his  common  sense,  wastes  no 
time,  loses  no  skill,  and  says  to  you,  "  Here  are  beau- 
tifully set  tresses,  which  I  have  carefully  designed  and 
easily    stamped.     Enjoy    them ;   and    if  you    cannot  un 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEART.  173 

derstand  that  they  mean  lion's  mane,  heaven  mend  youi 
wits." 

172.  See  then,  yon  have  in  this  work,  well-founded 
knowledge,  simple  and  right  aims,  thorough  mastery  of 
handicraft,  splendid  invention  in  arrangement,  unerring 
common  sense  in  treatment, — merits,  these,  I  think,  ex- 
emplary enough  to  justify  our  tormenting  you  a  little  with 
Greek  Art.  But  it  has  one  merit  more  than  these,  the 
greatest  of  all.  It  always  means  something  worth  saying. 
Not  merely  worth  saying  for  that  time  only,  but  for  all 
time.  What  do  you  think  this  helmet  of  lion's  hide  is  al- 
ways given  to  Hercules  for  ?  You  can't  suppose  it  means 
only  that  he  once  killed  a  lion,  and  always  carried  its  skin 
afterwards  to  show  that  he  had,  as  Indian  sportsmen  send 
home  stuffed  rugs,  with  claws  at  the. corners,  and  a  lump 
in  the  middle  which  one  tumbles  over  every  time  one  stirs 
the  fire.  What  was  this  Nemean  Lion,  whose  spoils  were 
evermore  to  cover  Hercules  from  the  cold  ?  Not  merely 
a  large  specimen  of  Felis  Leo,  ranging  the  fields  of  Nemea, 
be  sure  of  that.  This  Nemean  cub  was  one  of  a  bad  lit- 
ter. Born  of  Typhon  and  Echidna,  —  of  the  whirlwind 
and  the  snake, — Cerberus  his  brother,  the  Hydra  of Lerna 
his  sister, — it  must  have  been  difficult  to  get  his  hide  off 
him.  He  had  to  be  found  in  darkness  too,  and  dealt  upon 
without  weapons,  by  grip  at  the  throat — arrows  and  club 
of  no  avail  against  him.     What  does  all  that  mean? 

173.  It  means  that  the  Nemean  Lion  is  the  first  great 
adversary  of  life,  whatever  that  may  be — to  Hercules,  or 


174  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   AER. 

to  any  of  us,  then  or  now.  The  first  monster  we  have  to 
strangle,  or  be  destroyed  by,  fighting  in  the  dark,  and  with 
none  to  help  us,  only  Athena  standing  by,  to  encourage 
with  her  smile.  Every  man's  ISTemean  Lion  lies  in  wait 
for  him  somewhere.  The  slothful  man  says,  there  is  a  lion 
in  the  path.  He  says  well.  The  quiet  imslothful  man 
gays  the  same,  and  knows  it  too.  But  they  differ  in  their 
farther  reading  of  the  text.  The  slothful  man  says  I  shall 
be  slain,  and  the  unslothful,  it  shall  be.  It  is  the  first 
ugly  and  strong  enemy  that  rises  against  us,  all  future 
victory  depending  on  victory  over  that.  Kill  it ;  and 
through  all  the  rest  of  life,  what  was  once'dreadful  is  your 
armour  and  you  are  clothed  with  that  conquest  for  every 
other,  and  helmed  with  its  crest  of  fortitude  for  evermore 

Alas,  we  have  most  of  us  to  wralk  bare-headed;  but  that 
is  the  meaning  of  the  story  of  Nemea, — worth  laying  to 
heart  and  thinking  of,  sometimes,  when  you  see  a  dish 
garnished  with  parsley,  which  was  the  crown  at  the  Ise- 
mean  games. 

174.  How  far,  then,  have  we  got,  in  onr  list  of  the 
merits  of  Greek  art  now? 

Sound  knowledge. 

Simple  aims. 

Mastered  craft. 

Vivid  invention. 

Strong  common  sense. 

And  eternally  true  and  wise  meaning. 

Are  these  not  enough  ?     Here  is  one  more  then    wbic! 


ATHENA   IN   THE   HEART.  175 

will  find  favour,  I  should  thinly  with  the  British  Lion, 
Greek  art  is  never  frightened  at  anything,  it  is  always 
cool. 

175.  It  differs  essentially  from  all  other  art,  past  or 
present,  in  this  incapability  of  being  frightened.  Half 
the  power  and  imagination  of  every  other  school  depend 
on  a  certain  feverish  terror  mingling  with  their  sense  of 
beauty ; — the  feeling  that  a  child  has  in  a  dark  room,  or  a 
sick  person  in  seeing  ugly  dreams.  But  the  Greeks  never 
have  ugly  dreams.  They  cannot  draw  anything  ugly 
when  they  try.  Sometimes  they  put  themselves  to  their 
wits'-end  to  draw  an  ugly  thing, — the  Medusa's  head,  for 
instance, — but  they  can't  do  it, — not  they, — because  noth- 
ing frightens  them.  They  widen  the  mouth,  and  grind 
the  teeth,  and  puff  the  checks,  and  set  the  eyee  a-gog- 
gling ;  and  the  thing  is  only  ridiculous  after  all,  not  the 
least  dreadful,  for  there  is  no  dread  in  their  hearts.  Pen- 
siveness;  amazement;  often  deepest  grief  and  desolate 
ness.  All  these;  but  terror  never.  Everlasting  calm  in 
the  presence  of  all  fate;  and  joy  such  as  they  could  win, 
not  indeed  in  a,  perfect  beauty,  but  in  beauty  at  perfect 
rest!  A  kind  of  art  this,  surely,  to  be  looked  at,  and 
thought  upon  sometimes  with  profit,  even  in  these  latter 
(lays. 

176.  To  be  looked  at  sometimes.  Not  continually 
and  never  as  a  model  for  imitation.  I'm-  yon  arc  not 
Greeks;  but,  for  better  or  worse,  English  creatures;  and 
cannot  do,  even   if  it  were  a  thousand  times  bettor  worth 


176  THE   QUEEN   OF   THE   ATE. 

doing,  anything  well,  except  what  your  English  hearts 
6hall  prompt,  and  your  English  skies  teach  you.  For  all 
good  art  is  the  natural  utterance  of  its  own  people  in  its 
own  day. 

But  also,  your  own  art  is  a  better  and  brighter  one  than 
ever  tin's  Greek  art  was.  Many  motive?,  powers,  and  in- 
sights have  been  added  to  those  elder  ones.  The  very 
corruptions  into  which  we  have  fallen  are  signs  of  a 
subtle  life,-  higher  than  theirs  was,  and  therefore  more 
fearful  in  its  faults  and  death.  Christianity  has  neither 
superseded,  nor,  by  itself,  excelled  heathenism;  but  it  has 
added  its  own  good,  won  also  by  many  a-Nemean  contest 
in  dark  valleys,  to  all  that  was  good  and  noble  in  hea- 
thenism :  and  our  present  thoughts  and  work,  when  they 
are  right,  are  nobler  than  the  heathen's.  And  we  are  not 
reverent  enough  to  them,  because  we  possess  too  much 
of  them.  That  sketch  of  four  cherub  heads  from  an 
English  girl,  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  at  Kensington, 
is  an  in  comparably  finer  thing  than  ever  the  Greeks 
did.  Ineffably  tender  in  the  touch,  yet  Herculean  in 
power;  innocent,  yet  exalted  in  feeling;  pure  in  colour 
as  a  pearl ;  reserved  and  decisive  in  design,  as  this  Lion 
crest, — if  it  alone  existed  of  such, — if  it  were  a  picture  by 
Zeuxis,  the  only  one  left  in  the  world,  and  you  buil 
a  shrine  for  it,  and  were  allowed  to  see  it  only  seven  clays 
in  a  year,  it  alone  would  •teach  you  all  of  art  that  you 
ever  needed  to  know.  But  you  do  not  learn  from  this 
or  any  othei  such  work,  because  you  have  not  reverence 


ATHENA   m   THE   HEART.  177 

enough  for  them,  and  are  trying  to  learn  from  all  at  once, 
and  from  a  hundred  other  masters  besides. 

177.  Here,  then,  is  the  practical  advice  \vl1i2h  I  would 
venture  to  deduce  from  what  I  have  tried  to  show  yon. 
Uso  Greek  art  as  a  first,  not  a  final,  teacher.  Learn  to 
draw  carefully  from  Greek  work ;  above  all,  to  place 
forms  correctly,  and  to  use  light  and  shade  tenderly. 
Never  allow  yourselves  black  shadows.  It  is  easy  to  make 
things  look  round  and  projecting ;  but  the  things  to  exer- 
cise yourselves  in  are  the  placing  of  the  masses,  and  the 
modelling  of  the  lights.  It  is  an  admirable  exercise  to 
take  a  pale  wash  of  colour  for  all  the  shadows,  never 
reinforcing  it  everywhere,  but  drawing  the  statue  as  if 
it  were  in  far  distance,  making  all  the  darks  one  flat  pale 
tint.  Then  model  from  those  into  the  lights,  rounding  as 
well  as  you  can,  on  those  subtle  conditions.  In  your 
chalk  drawings,  separate  the  lights  from  the  darks  at  once 
all  over;  then  reinforce  the  darks  slightly  where  abso 
lutely  necessary,  and  put  your  whole  strength  on  the 
lights  and  their  limits.  Then,  when  you  have  learned 
to  draw  thoroughly,  take  one  master  for  your  painting, 
as  you  would  have  done  necessarily  in  old  times  by  being 
put  into  his  school  (were  I  to  choose  for  you,  it  should 
be  among  six  men  only — Titian,  Correggio,  Paul  Veron- 
ese, Velasquez,  Reynolds,  or  Holbein).  If  you  are  a 
landscapist,  Turner  must  be  your  only  guide,  (for  no 
other  great  landscape  painter  has  yet  lived);  and  having 
chosen,   do   your    best    to    understand  your  own   choseE 


178  THE   QUEEN    OF   THE   MR. 

master,  and  obey  him,  and  no  one  else,  till  you  hav 
strength  to  deal  with  the  nature  itself  round  you,  and 
then,  be  your  own  master,  and  see  with  your  own  eyes. 
If  you  have  got  masterhood  or  sight  in  you,  that  is  the 
way  to  make  the  most  of  them ;  and  if  you  have  neither, 
you  will  at  least  be  sound  in  your  work,  prevented  from 
immodest  and  useless  effort,  and  protected  from  vulgar 
and  fantastic  error. 

And  so  I  wish  you  all,  good  speed,  and  the  favour 
of  Hercules  and  of  the  Muses;  and  to  those  who  shall 
best  deserve  them,  the  crown  of  Parsley  first  and  then 
of  the  Laurel. 


THE    END. 


f 


t 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara  College  Library 
Goleta,  California 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


63  HO?  1 8 1982 


'AN  6  1* 


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